Saving Smartphone App to Curb Distracted Driving
strong>End Distracted Driving (EndDD) and the National Distracted Driving Coalition (NDDC) are urging drivers to “set it and forget it” for the second annual National Do Not Disturb While Driving Day on Thursday, October 19.
“Turn this setting on and leave it on,” said Joel Feldman, founder of the Casey Feldman Foundation and EndDD.org. “It took my daughter being killed by a distracted driver for me to commit to being more focused behind the wheel. It shouldn’t take a tragedy for each of us to make that decision. Enabling this setting is a quick and easy step that we can all take right now.”
Feldman points out that the Do Not Disturb function can be set to turn on automatically on both iPhone and android devices while the user is driving. The feature will silence incoming calls and texts and notify the sender that the driver will respond once they have arrived at their destination.
Distracted driving remains a major problem on U.S. roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that distracted driving was involved in 29-percent of all crashes in 2019, resulting in more than 10-thousand deaths – cell phones are a major culprit. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, crash risk is 2-6 times higher when drivers are using a cell phone compared to when they aren’t distracted. feature.
Said Matt Fiorentino, VP of Marketing for Cambridge Mobile Telematics, “Do Not Disturb While Driving works – 74% of people who use it say it’s made them a safer driver. The problem is that only 1 of 5 drivers use it. This is a huge missed opportunity to make roads safer and save lives. Making Do Not Disturb While Driving an opt-out feature would be one of the fastest ways we could reduce distracted driving across the country.”
On Do Not Disturb While Driving Day, EndDD and NDDC hope to raise awareness about the easy to use feature. Says Feldman, “Distracted driving has gotten worse since my daughter was killed in 2009. Our phones are so addictive – if we hear them we will use them. Using the DNDWD settings on our phones is so simple and effective and the right thing to do. We can all do our part to make our roads safer if we just “set it and forget it.”
