New App Keeps Tabs on Texting Drivers
Texting while driving has become a nationwide epidemic, one that the developers of a new smartphone application hope to eradicate.
The Vehawk app tracks a driver's cellphone usage during a trip and sends notifications to the account holder (most likely a parent) when texting while driving has been detected. The account holder can access other information online such as detailed maps of each route, each text or call that was made during the trip and where they happened along the route. It also can track other dangerous driving behavior like speeding.
The app was co-developed by Dr. Chad Carman, an emergency room physician, and Kip Carman, an IT professional. They hope it will be used by parents to monitor teen driving habits and by businesses with fleets of employee-driven vehicles.
"We believe that passing laws is not enough to effectively limit distracted driving. Vehawk has all the potential to save countless lives from this tragic national epidemic," Dr. Chad Carman said in a statement.
It sounds like a helpful way to monitor dangerous behavior, but the catch is drivers need to enable the app on their phone for the incriminating data to be transmitted.
Vehawk is currently in the beta testing phase and works on Android-platform phones; an iPhone app is also in development. Click here to find out more.
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Sounds like big brother for a jealous girl/boyfriend, spouse, etc.
It's nice in concept, but there are definitely some question marks. The first one is obviously that the user must enable. Sure a parent can make you activate it before you leave the house, but there's no way to tell if you made intermediate trips with it off. Also, I assume it tracks your GPS position to determine that you're "driving" but it has no way to know if you're actually driving or just a passenger.
One correction on the posted article. The application auto detects movement using GPS. It does not require the driver to enable anything. The system captures data regardless of driver or passenger status. If you are the passenger you can select the option to mark the trip with "I'm not the driver" however all the data is still captured and presented in the Vehawk inSIGHT reporting tool. The trip is then marked with the same "I'm not the driver" but the trip is still logged.
Co-Founder of Vehawk, LLC