The Safe Driver

Changing the habit of cell phone dependency while driving

Like many people, we have our lives on our phone. Press a button and you make a call. There are only a few numbers I have memorized, the rest are all programed into my phone. Most things I do electronically I do through my phone, such as text, call, email and social media. We know we should leave our phones alone while driving, but for some people, that can be difficult.

These people need to be up to date on everything in their lives from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep. However, there needs to be down time from using our phones while driving, but that seems to be a problem. Luckily, there are some pretty impressive apps out there to help us mold our minds into being responsible drivers while leaving our phones alone.

I came across Motion Intelligence, a company in the market to reduce distracted driving directed at fleet drivers across the world. Whenever I come across a new way to help improve road safety, I need to know more. Since I don’t manage a fleet, I wanted to test it out on the drivers in my family. In a way, I acted as the fleet manager for my family.

The system works with an app downloaded to the phone, a signalling device placed inside the vehicle and dashboard to monitor how each device is being used, among other things. A couple of my kids and I downloaded the app on our phones and tested just how it could work for families who wanted to train their ways to avoid distracted driving through the use of their phones.

The app is called “Evvy” and it’s designed to block out all apps except those allowed by the fleet manager. For example, if the vehicle has blue tooth capabilities, the driver will still be able to receive and make calls. As the fleet manager I could allow the driver to access other apps, such as any map app on their phone, such as Google maps. All other apps on their phone would not be available while they are operating the vehicle except for the ones I allowed.

One of the big pluses was the ability to block notifications to the driver of incoming messages. Although they were still receiving messages, the driver was not notified of them while they were in motion. This allowed the driver to maintain concentration on the driving task without being tempted to check what the message was that just came in. once safely parked, they would be able to see all of their notifications.

I asked my daughters to attempt to get around the app while they were in the vehicle in the passenger seat. I had the app disconnect when their vehicle was stationary for 60 seconds. That too can be adjusted by the fleet manager. They will use their phones in the drive-thru but since the wait in the drive-thru lasts longer than 60 seconds, they had enough time to have Evvy disconnect by the time they got to the pay window. If I found that time was too long, I could change it to 30 or 45 seconds before it disconnects.

This advanced app will also detect if another phone is in the vehicle which does not have the app installed on it. That too was tested to find out if there was a way they could access a cell phone while driving. If their friend or brother was with them, it would show up as a “rogue device”. If they were driving alone but had a second phone to use, it would detect that as well. It allowed me to find out if they were trying to use another phone, other than the phone with the Evvy app installed on it while they were driving.

After a few weeks, they resisted their phones. They stopped even trying to get information from their phone until they reached their destination because they knew it would not work, which was exactly how this app was designed to work. The fleet manager dashboard made it easy to track their use of the phone to see how well they were complying with the app. And for fleet managers, there’s also a GPS addition which can track the location of your drivers, which is definitely a plus for any fleet.

Overall I was pleased with this app and it would be something I would highly recommend to any fleet manager or family of drivers. It was helping to mold the attitude and mind of the younger drivers in my family and to change their cell phone habits behind the wheel. One thing to remember, habits never die, they just change. Motion Intelligence can certainly help change the habit of cell phone dependency while driving.