I've been a Car and Driver
reader since the magazine's legendary and somewhat notorious March 1964
issue, whose cover story purported to pit an upstart Pontiac Tempest
GTO against the original Ferrari GTO (from which General Motors had
"borrowed" the model name). That will give you some inkling of how
ancient I am, but never mind. I'm a fan.
As Don Sherman, whose writing and editorial career at Car and
Driver spanned five decades - from the '60s to the '00s -
wrote in 1984 on its 20th anniversary, that article was the tipping
point, "the moment when Car and Driver became a real grown-up
magazine" rather than just another auto-enthusiast journal. Indeed, I
accord substantial credit to Car and Driver and its competitor,
Road & Track (I still subscribe to both), and writers like
the late Warren Weith, Brock Yates, David E. Davis Jr. at C and
D, and the late Henry N. Manney and John R. Bond at R&T
for my own formation as a writer and journalist.
Anyway, I'm delighted - although
not surprised - that Car and
Driver (now boasting the largest audience of any monthly
automotive magazine), in cooperation with Fiat-owned Chrysler Group LLC, is taking a
proactive stance against a particular bête noire of mine -
the texting while driving (TWD) pandemic that has emerged as one of our
era's most pernicious driving hazards around the globe. (See last
week's Texting While
Driving: A Deadly Epidemic.)
Popular infatuation with texting has grown from 4.1 trillion text
messages in all of 2008 to more than 1.6 trillion text messages per
day in 2010, a phenomenon whose side-effects, such as death and
injury due to car crashes caused by TWD, have yet to be fully
quantified.
A study released Sept. 26 by the American Journal of Public Health
found that distracted driving fatalities caused by cell phone use and
texting soared 28% (from 4,572 in 2005 to 5,870 in 2008) and further
showed that texting has caused more than 16,000 deaths in US car
crashes from 2001 to 2007.
According to a UK Transport Research Laboratory study commissioned
by the Royal Automobile Club Foundation, motorists sending text
messages while driving are "significantly more impaired" than ones who
drive drunk. The study showed texters' reaction times deteriorated by
35%, with a whopping 91% decrease in steering ability, while similar
studies of drunk driving indicate reaction times diminishment of a
relatively modest 12%.
Txt U L8r
Car and
Driver this week announced the launch of Txt U L8r, a free mobile
application for handheld devices created to combat the dangers of
texting while driving. Sponsored by Chrysler and developed by iSpeech, Txt U L8r automatically responds
to text messages without obliging drivers to take their eyes off the
road or their hands off the wheel.
When Txt U L8r is running on a driver's handheld device, the
application sends a predetermined message back to the sender with an
alert that the user is unavailable. At the same time, the received
message is read aloud to the driver, ensuring he or she doesn't miss an
urgent message. A paid upgrade of the app is available, allowing the
driver to respond back to messages with voice commands.
Development
of Txt U L8r was prompted by a Car and Driver Texting While
Driving Study (see
Texting While Driving: How Dangerous Is It?) that showed driver
reaction times while texting were much worse compared to drunk driver
reaction times. The study demonstrated the time it takes to hit the
brakes when sober, when legally drunk, when reading an email and when
sending a text.
Determinations of the Car and Driver Texting While Driving
study include:
- When unimpaired, it took drivers an average of .54 seconds to
brake.
- When legally drunk, it took an additional four feet to brake.
- When reading an email, it required an additional 36 feet to bring
the car to a stop.
- When sending a text, another 70 feet was required to brake.
Based on the results of this study, Car and Driver
representatives appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show in January 2010 as
part of Oprah's widely popular "No Phone Zone" pledge, to discuss
their findings and to demonstrate just how dangerous texting while
driving truly is.
"Our experiment showed just how dangerous texting while driving can
be," says Car and Driver's editor-in-chief Eddie Alterman. "The
results of our research were precisely the reason we developed Txt U
L8r in an effort to help drivers avoid car accidents often associated
with distracted driving. Our goal is to make Txt U L8r part of a daily
driving routine while helping save lives behind the wheel."
The problem of texting while driving, coupled with the results of
the Car and Driver study, were the primary reasons why Chrysler
chose to officially sponsor the Txt U L8r application.
Chrysler Group LLC
was the first automaker to establish a corporate policy prohibiting its
employees from texting while driving company-owned vehicles and texting
with company-provided communication devices while driving personal
vehicles. Chrysler has implemented these strictures to promote safer
driving behaviors and to serve as an industry example, and it will take
it a step further by encouraging employees to download the Txt U L8r
application to their company-owned communication devices.
The Chrysler Brand will also take action on its Facebook page to ask its community
and owners to make the commitment of not texting while driving. With a
click, fans can take the "I Drive Text-Free" pledge as well as share it
with their friends and family on Facebook.
"Chrysler brand vehicles are designed with available safety and
security features that help to deliver your precious cargo safely from
one destination to the next," says Chrysler Group LLC Chrysler Brand
President and CEO Olivier Francois. "Together, let's pledge to keep our
eyes on the road and our hands on the wheel by promising not to text
while driving."
To download Txt U L8r:
Or visit the Android Market or Blackberry Appworld to download the
application to your handheld device.
No word on an Apple iOS version as yet.
Other anti-texting while driving applications include
SafeCellApp, which works with iPhone, and Iconosys SMSReplier and
DriveReplier.
