Parents of teenagers today have more than the usual host of worries that come with a new driver: now, they must worry about texting and driving. In a recent statement for Quiet Zone, a product that aims to rectify this problem (among others), texting while driving was cited as the number one cause of death among teenagers.
Inventor of Quiet Zone, Brandon Butts, explains, “Quiet Zone works similarly to any traditional Wi-Fi signal. The device seeks a signal from the app on your Android smartphone and modifies the settings the same way a hotspot allows a phone to access the Internet and only works while you are in close proximity to the device.”
Quiet Zone Hush devices already exist in movie theaters and churches, limiting the distractions that mobile devices create in close proximity to the device by dimming the screen and silencing ringers. Now, the company is launching Quiet Zone Drive, a device that can be permanently or temporarily installed in a vehicle, blocking cell phones in the vehicle from being able to send and receive text messages. The next logical question might be what would happen in the event that a teen disabled the device—Quiet Zone has already thought that out: parents will be notified if their teenager removes the application from their phone.
There have been a number of attempts made to prevent teens from texting while driving, including one attempt by a team of teenagers who appeared on Shark Tank. Their pitch? A smart steering wheel that would detect distracted driving hand patterns, alert the driver when their hands shift into one of these patterns, and keep a log and report back to parents.
Whether these devices will be able to curb distracted driving or not is yet to be seen. Hopefully, innovators will be able to develop a wide range of solutions, finding a variety to fit the needs of various types of teenagers and other distracted drivers.
Edited by
Ryan Sartor