Textecution puts an end to teen texting while driving
Filed under: Kids and Money, Technology, Transportation
With more and more research showing that texting while driving is a major distraction and can cause accidents it's no wonder that many states are imposing costly fines for drivers who choose to drive while intexticated. Texting while driving is especially popular amongst teens, and preventing young drivers from disobeying cell phone laws is as hard as getting Maria Shriver to stop talking while driving.
Thankfully there's a simple answer to this problem for anyone with an Android phone, like the T-Mobile MyTouch, a program called Textecution.
Textecution is a program that runs on Android phones and uses the onboard GPS to know how fast the phone is moving. If it detects the phone traveling at speeds that indicate it is in a car, Textecution disables the texting functions of the phone.
But mooooom, your kid is sure to complain when you install this little application on their phone, "I need to be able to text when I am riding the bus to my soccer game! This isn't fair!" That's where Textecution moves from handy way to prevent teen texting to ingenious.
If your teen is moving too fast, but not the driver, they can send a request for access which will alert you and let you enable their text messaging functions with a simple text reply. Best of all, as part of National Teen Driver Safety Week, it's on sale for $1.99.
With more states putting texting while driving laws on the books, having a text addicted teen driver could get costly very quickly. Fines commonly start close to $100 and several states are trying to get laws passed that would make fines hundreds of dollars for a single offense.
On top of fines, a single accident can easily cost a few hundred for a fender bender to several thousand for a crash, not to mention the increased insurance cost for years to come.
Even though there's nothing in place to stop your kid from removing Textecution from their phone, other than you knowing later, it is a useful tool for preventing texting while driving and keeping your kid safe and focused when they are behind the wheel.
If you don't have an Android phone to use Textecution with perhaps you should just sit your kid down to watch this, very graphic, PSA from the UK that explains the dangers of texting while driving in an unforgettable manner.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-27-2009 @ 11:54AM
Mike Charles said...
I recently came across a blog post in consumer reports about a new free mobile phone application to help combat distracted driving called DriveSafe.ly that reads your texts and emails to you while you are driving.
It looked pretty interesting so I tried it. I have a BlackBerry and it has really helped me when I’m on the road because it keeps me from texting while driving. It works through my Bluetooth and it can actually send an auto-response to the sender. I’ve had some fun with customizing the auto-response messages. I’m not that technical but it’s easy to use. I recommend people checking out www.DriveSafe.ly
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10-30-2009 @ 11:51AM
Mom of 3 soon-to-be teen drivers said...
My solution will be the following. As long as they live under my roof and are on my insurance plan, they are not permitted to bring their own cell phone on the road with them. Get a Virgin Mobile phone (or another pay as you go) with NO TEXTING FEATURE, and keep it charged up in the car all the time (costs about $20.00 every three months). The phone is to be used for emergency purposes only, and not while the car is in motion. Use of the phone can be easily checked on Virgin Mobile's site. We need to wake up as parents and understand this teen texting addition, and do whatever we need to do to combat it. I blame the parents who give way too much freedom to these clueless teenagers of today.
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10-30-2009 @ 10:41AM
Marti said...
My best friend just lost her beautiful 24 year old daughter because of this senseless tragedy last Monday. The 19 year that hit her was texting while driving, with her 6 month old baby in the back seat. She crossed the center line and hit Claire head on. I hope that every state across this country will ban texting while diriving. If you need to talk to someone that badly, pick up the phone and make the call. Don't let other people die needlessly because of your stupidity or laziness. If you do have to text, pull over for God sake. Nothing can bring Claire back. And to me, that is a loss we will never get over.
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11-08-2009 @ 1:09PM
Gil said...
Call texting homework. They'll avoid it like the plague.
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