Cogosense Blog

Cogosense's Driver Behaviour Blog

NHTSA new study + Aegis Mobility 2014 Distracted Driving Survey

Despite the growing awareness, media coverage, accidents and fatalities from distracted driving, we have seen a steady trend in responses to our annual survey. Company attitudes and their approach to managing distracted driving have changed little over the past few years. What has changed is a drop in the level of confidence respondents have in the enforcement methods being used. On the one hand we have growing awareness of the distracted driving problem, while on the other we have decreasing confidence in policy enforcement. And the response seems to be to stick with the same monitoring and enforcement methods. Is it time for a new approach?

The NHTSA just released a new study that shows Distracted Driving accounts for 15% of economic impact motor crashes cause, which tallies up to $129 billion when looking at the overall societal harm caused by these crashes.  Surely it is time to take a more proactive approach and look at technology solutions to help curb these distractions and further promote safe driving behaviors.

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How Will Handset Companies React to Alexander Heit's Fatal Text Message?

How Will Handset Companies React to Alexander Heit's Fatal Text Message?

I noticed another distracted driving tragedy in the news recently. University of Northern Colorado student Alexander Heit crashed his car as a result of being distracted by texting while driving and died of his injuries soon after. 

Included in the article was a photo of his iPhone displaying the last words he typed. His parents wanted the image shared as a reminder to others of the dangers of texting while driving.

The photo is an unfortunate association for Apple. While it could have easily been any phone, it made me wonder about how such an association might impact a company’s brand and how the handset companies will react.

Given increasing public awareness of the problem of distracted driving, I believe the first handset company to openly embrace the distracted driving issue and provide solutions as part of their operating system would elicit a positive reaction from consumers, particularly the parents of young drivers.

Imagine, for example, that as part of the set-up procedure for a new smartphone, the consumer is informed of the dangers of using that handset while driving and is offered the opportunity to enable a safe driving feature that automatically silences and disables the phone when driving.

Granted, some handset companies are taking steps to reduce distraction -- for example Siri Eyes Free and Motorola Smart Actions -- but I predict that we’ll see the major handset brands paying more and more attention to the issue of distracted driving to protect both their brand and their bottom line.

Story: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/final-text-crash-cuts-off-sentence/story-fnd134gw-1226618691883

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Distracted Driving – the New DUI

The statement “Distracted Driving is the new DUI” has been used a number of times and now, at least in the province of Saskatchewan, it seems to be the actual case according to a recent article on the number of fatalities in the province for 2012.

Read it on Global News: Global Regina | Distracted drivers outnumber impaired drivers: a first for Saskatchewan 

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