How to stop texting while driving

Chiltern Railways has already succeeded. The technology is passive and completely legal.

There is a very small amount of gold introduced into the glass that forms the windows in the Quiet Coach in some formations. It turns the coach body into a Faraday Cage. Radio cannot get in, making all phones inside it inoperable.

And what a blessed relief it is riding in it.

What about the passengers/navigator relying on outside communications to arrive at the destination on time? How would this affect the GPS NAV systems? What about an emergency situation where you were pinned inside your car, and the only way for help was a phone call to 911?

As for GPS systems, I believe they have an antenna atop the car. Cell phones generally do not. Certainly a system for navigation could be developed to work in parallel on a different controlled frequency. Already there are laws in certain areas about being on a cell phone while driving, but that doesnt stop anyone from doing it. We need a foolproof means to prevent it.

The GPS NAV system in the Iphone has no antenna on the top of the car, it works on cell service. I know many people who use their GPS NAV enabled phone to get them where they need to go, turn by turn mounted on their dash.

I'm afraid If the car is turned into a Faraday cage, people are just going to roll down the window and stick their head outside when talking/texting... which I would guess only adds to the dangers.

......and if the phone were absent or damaged beyond use?

Well, then you'd better start praying.

I'm afraid that if we can't wait patiently for "surviival of the fittest" to eliminate the driving-while-texting gene out of humanity, we're going to have to turn to technology.

Am I mistaken that it should be fairly simple and cheap to implement that automobiles and phones be equipped with a short-range bluetooth-ish connection that disables a phone's texting and dial-out abilities (with the exception of 911) whenever the car is in motion? Receiving calls would still be enabled for emergency contacts and such.

Of course there will be a percentage of the population that will resist it if for no other reason than on the grounds that driving while texting is one of "our freedoms".

Just a reminder for any Texans out there, starting September 1st, it's no longer legal to use your phone in school zones. (It's doubly dangerous since all the school kids will be on theirs.)

Is the law in Texas going to be any more effective than the 1904 law (that still exists) that demands that each time a motor car comes out on the street, there should be a person with a red flag running ahead warning people that a motor car was approaching. This is to allow folks to control thier horses that used to get out of control as the horses had never experienced anything as noisy and as bizzare as a motor vehicle.

Seriously we need a device that could sense car's motion and cut out the signal. A combination of GPS, accelerometers, mercury swithes and jammers etc. could be used?

I prefer to KISS. Give the crossing guards handguns.

And in our defense, I believe that is an English law you're citing. Texans would never wave a red flag for any reason.

During the pre-trip inspection before you enter the vehicle put the texting device in the trunk

While i agree that it is idiocy to text while driving and even using a hands-free system it is better not to phone and drive, all of the solutions suggested make it impossible for anyone to use a phone in the car. What about the passengers?

There are many situations when as a passenger I have needed to either text or phone while the car is in motion.

I think that unfortunate as it may be the only solution is the imperfect one of relying on the person in control of the vehicle not texting while the car is in motion.

Integrate the cell phone into the starting system. Phone must be in place before car is started allowing only hands free use!

And if no-one in the vehicle has a phone? What then?

If a person can't operate a machine properly, they lose their right to operate such machine.

All the complains about distracted drivers are ridiculous. There are and will be distraction all the time. The nice girl/guy driving beside you. The ads on the street. Building on the side of the road. The cop going down the road with flashing lights. Are we going to make it illegal to look at all those stuff? Are we going to ticket people thinking while driving?

Making all those "things" illegal won't solve the driver problem. The driver is the problem, not the cell phone, TV, radio, passenger, girl seating in car beside you, the cat crossed the road etc. If a driver can't deal with distraction while driving, he/she shouldn't be driving. Period.

Why do we let them driver and make stupid laws to ticket them for any reason we could think of? I don't see any reason for safety. I only see someone want to make money. Keep those "easily distracted" people off the road.

The driver should know what he/she can do while driving. I could talk and drive but not text and drive. Still I won't stay on the phone if I'm driving.

We don't need laws to ban every single electronic device/technology ever produced. It just retarded.

I saw a TV program a few months ago that this technology of jamming phones inside moving vehicles has been done. I didn't pay too much attention so don't know the details. No time to google it either.

Most cell phone jamming effects the voice function only, texting can usually continue with cell phone jamming is occurring.

You are not the first with this approach...which is the only sensible, practical...do-able approach that would work and work well...and ulitimately would receive easy public acceptance.

However, there are too many interests that are or would be arrayed against it:

The ones (now) that don't get it...technically.

The ones profitting from the false concept of mobility....including auto manufacturers who gain proportionately high profits including cheap interface options for these devices and then selling/bundling the options at huge markups.

Government principalities (think traffic cop and traffic court rackets) which, in spite of their public face regarding public safety, actually only see the problem as another means to revenue by confiscation.

The unfortunate thing...if the public understood the problem well enough, and actually valued personal liberty (as opposed to constant gratification and liberty to conform), then it would be the public who would demand to be "jammed" from having accidents in the cars...much like people accept the cost and limitations imposed by air bags, even though air bags far more often than not prove to be a very expensive wasted investment.

I know this an old thread, but there was a law just passed recently that led me to this. My biggest issue was how do the police enforce this law.

Anyway, there is no doubt about the dangers of texting and driving and I was just curious what ideas were being kicked around on engineering fourm like this.

To me the best solution to this is something that's featured in this article, and found at this website. I just have to wonder if this guy has a lock on the patenting of this kind of technology or something. Why is it not more widely available? I checked the android market, and did not come across anything like this.

To me it makes more sense to pass a law that this type of technology is incorporated into modern phone builds.