Device disables phones in cars

Talking on your cell phone while driving is dangerous.

Salt Lake Tribune

SALT LAKE CITY — At any given moment on U.S. roads, 10 percent of young drivers are working their cell phones, according to highway safety research.

Now, University of Utah researchers have developed a solution to this public safety danger: a key attachment that disables a youth’s cell phone while the ignition is on.

The idea was the brainchild of Salt Lake City native Wally Curry, a Kansas doctor who studied at the university as an undergraduate and medical resident.

As a urologist, Curry fields relentless calls from the office with queries regarding patient needs.

“I’m constantly day or night taking calls, when I’m driving, when I’m not driving. One day I was in my car and I observed a young teen-age girl texting while driving. She was looking down,” said Curry, himself the father of two girls approaching driving age. “This is crazy, but at the same point it’s what I’m doing. Something has to be done to stop it.”

The university and other institutions have provided ample evidence that cell phone use impairs driving. And yet the phenomenon persists at epidemic levels, particularly among the young, already the worst drivers on the road. And the problem is getting worse, says the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Drivers age 16 to 24 phone while driving 10 percent of the time in 2005, up from 5 percent in 2002, according to a literature review by Curry’s co-inventor, Xuesong Zhou. The 2005 figure is 6 percent for the population as a whole.

Curry’s initial idea was to use Global Position System technology to disable the phone while it was in motion. But such a system was saddled with problems, primarily the technology’s inability to distinguish whether the cell phone was used by a driver or a passenger.

“How would you determine if someone was on a moving bus or a train, or even walking?” Curry said. “And GPS data is extra slow. It may take several minutes to register that’s it’s moving.”

Zhou, an assistant professor of civil engineering, devised a solution — a key that transmits a Blue- tooth signal to the phone. When the ignition is engaged, the signal disables the phone, while still allowing it to place emergency calls. It can also be programmed to allow incoming emergency calls or be programmed to work when the phone is operated with hands-free equipment.

The university holds provisional patents to the technology, called Key2SafeDriving, and licensed it to the firm Accendo LC, which is trying to have a product on the market within six months. Projected cost per unit is less than $50, plus monthly service fees, according to Accendo, a Kaysville firm specializing in providing early-stage seed capital and business support for new technologies.

“Not only will it create a safer environment for everyone, it can be a great thing for saving lives and saving on insurance premiums,” said Ronn Hartmann, Accendo’s managing partner. “We can take this product to market and sell it as a service, but it is best sold to service providers to sell as an add-on. We also feel we’ll get great backing from the insurance and auto companies.”

The device encases the car key. When the key is slid out, a disabling message is sent and a “stop” sign displays on the phone, Zhou said. Incoming calls and texts are automatically answered with the message: “I am driving now. I will call you later when I arrive at the destination safely.”