Although everyone knows it is dangerous to text and drive, or even taking a hands-free call while driving, many continue to do it anyway.
In 2008, Scott Tibbitts was on his way to a meeting with a fellow he never met, named Dave. He was absolutely shocked to hear that, in a tragic turn of events, Dave had been involved in a fatal car accident on the way to the meeting.
The driver who had T-boned Dave’s car was distracted by his cell phone. Instead of sitting idly by after such a horrible event, Scott decided to found a company called Katasi.
They just made a product called Groove, which they say is “the world’s first Cloud-based solution to distracted driving.”
Groove is a gadget that plugs into your car, and at the same time, “connects to the Cloud, letting your mobile phone provider know when you are driving and blocking distractions at the source so you can focus on the drive.”
Once the car stops, the apps are un-blocked. What about GPS? Or Music? Thoughtfully, that information is not blocked. What is really cool is that the phones of the passengers sitting in shotgun or the backseat of the car are unaffected by Groove.
Every day, eight people die from accidents related to distracted driving, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The problem is getting phone companies, car companies, and governments to go along with this specific solution.
Scott is waiting for someone in charge to tell him, “you’ve got a solution right under your hood. You could be heroes. Let’s just do this thing and save a bunch of lives.”
In the meantime, while the folks at Katasi work on having companies accept their elegant solution, it is best that we all try to not text and drive.