What’s more dangerous behind the wheel – drinking or texting?
As you can probably guess from the fact that I asked, multiple research studies have shown that the answer is, in fact, texting. According to a recent study from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, texting doubles the reaction time of a driver.
Just think of all those texting drivers on the highway. Kind of makes you want to take the train.
In order to solve this deadly problem, Virginia-based startup ORIGO has developed a distracted driving solution called the ORIGOSafe, which aims to take cell phones out of drivers’ hands, and put steering wheels back into them.
ORIGOSafe is an ignition interlock system that requires drivers to secure their phone in a docking station before their vehicle can start. In order to even start your engine, you must first place the phone in the docking station. The docking station will charge your phone and allow you make and receive calls via Bluetooth, but you certainly won’t be able to do any texting on it.
If you do remove the phone from the docking station, the system will attempt to stop you by flashing and sounding a loud alarm continuously until you put the phone back. If you make a habit of removing your phone, the system will stage an intervention and refuse to let you start the car without approval from an ORIGO system administrator.
The ORIGOSafe is a relatively simple and potentially effective, if annoying, solution to prevent texting while driving. Many vehicles don’t include technologies to prevent texting in their original configurations, making the ORIGOSafe a neat after-market solution for distracted driving. The system can be purchased and self-installed on any vehicle, and used with any supported smart phone.
If you’d rather build your own, here’s an episode of the Ben Heck show that has a DIY solution.