When you think about it, technology is greatly responsible for the rapid rise of car accidents caused by distracted drivers. Yes, distractions existed before cell phones, but according to the National Highway Transportation Administration, texting while driving makes you 23 times more likely to crash. This relatively new phenomenon is responsible for 1,600,000 accidents per year -- that’s 23% of all accidents. It’s an epidemic, and I believe that we should look to technology to help us.

Laws prohibiting drivers from texting exist in 39 states plus DC, but still 34% of Americans admit to doing it regularly, even though almost all of them acknowledge that it’s unsafe. Common sense won’t stop people from responding to the ping of an incoming message, and no amount of police monitoring can effectively deter them. Apple has had a patent for software that can lock the text message function on smartphones while in a moving vehicle since 2008. We think it’s time for this technology to be implemented on a large scale.

Please join us in calling on Apple, Google and Microsoft, to include text-to-GPS software locking systems as standard on all smartphones. These programs will automatically disable the texting function when certain speeds are detected.

Several anti-texting apps already exist. When activated, they do anything from auto-replying to inform people when a user is driving, to disabling texting. But these apps must be voluntarily turned on, which automatically reduces the number of dedicated users. AT&T encourages people to take a pledge not to text and drive, but again, this is voluntary. Eleven teens die every day in accidents caused by texting. We must do everything in our power to encourage tech companies to implement anti-texting programs, now. The software exists, and if we put enough pressure on them, they can make it standard in every new iPhone that hits the market.

Technology got us into this mess, but it can also get us out of it. Let’s call on Apple, Google and Microsoft, to implement these new technologies to prevent texting while driving. If the statistics aren’t enough to convince them of the dire need for this change, maybe our voices will be.

To learn more about our organization, Thursday’s Child, and our efforts to end texting and driving, visit our website.