Someone is bound to correct me because, as we all know, the world is divided into two types of people - those who believe the world is divided into two types of people, and those who don't.
Well, I am one of those people who believes "safer driving" apps can be divided into half a dozen categories. In the interests of being vague, which I do quite well, I would describe these categories in the following way, then offer representative examples of each one:
1. James Bond is your passenger
2. Big Brother really is watching you
3. Nice Auntie is watching out for you
4. Vin Diesel's little helper
5. No! Stay away from my car!
6. The Professor wants you to think.
The assortments of apps in these scientifically named categories generally rely on GPS and they run on smartphones, portable navigation devices (PNDs) or fixed, onboard devices. Many are multi-platform and some run only on the particular devices for which they were designed.
Let's kick off with the first category, which I have given the alternative scientific name of Everything Else.
1. James Bond is your passenger
I'll gloss over this category because it is the group of apps that are intended mainly to save money, whereas the other five groups of apps are designed to save lives.
The James Bond apps are the ones that do recce and surveillance for you, warning about traffic cameras, roadside radar and speed traps or telling you to slow down if you're driving too fast. An unfortunately large number of drivers do kill themselves or others by speeding. Most of the time, however, the apps in this category prevent the loss of your car rather than the metabolic non-viability of the people in it.
The reason you may lose your car if you ignore the advice from one of these apps is that you may have to sell it to pay the hefty fine. It's your fault for mistakenly believing a farm road in Idaho was an extension of the Autobahn.
What does maim, kill and cause massive financial damage is the behaviour that our next five categories focus on - namely, the pervasive and ultimately selfish practice of texting or chatting on phones while you're behind the wheel.
The mortality rate is especially high among teenagers who concentrate more on "LOL luv U 2" than on the articulated behemoth swerving out of control in the oncoming lane. Car accidents are the leading cause of death among American teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and stupid mobile phone behaviour contributes significantly to those accidents.
Pew Research Center's recent Internet & American Life Project reveals that 25 percent of US teens aged 16 to 17 who have cell phones admitted to texting while driving. Twice as many say they have been in the car with someone else who has. The net result - 5,870 fatalities and 515,000 injuries in the last year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
That's where our remaining five categories of safer driving apps come in.
2. Big Brother really is watching you
If drivers won't control their behaviour, someone else may do so by using this type of app or one of the special devices that slots into this category.
The Dash Trac is a good example. Having had teenage children and being a Big Brother-type parent at times, I see the great sense of it.
Dash Trac is a small tracking device that parents or guardians of teens can use to monitor the young drivers' behaviour on the road. The device plugs into the OBD port under the dashboard, a standard fitting on most American cars and trucks since 1996. A parent can monitor the Dash Trac from a personal computer.
The installed device reports the vehicle's location, speed and direction of travel. It also reports poor driving behaviour, and it's almost inevitable that texting while driving is going to produce some erratic behaviour behind the wheel.
Actsoft, the makers of Dash Trac, don't see it just as a way to scold or ground teenagers for being idiots. The company considers it to be a useful coaching tool.
3. Nice Auntie is watching out for you
This class of app doesn't monitor the driver's behaviour remotely. These apps control how the driver can use the phone while the vehicle is in motion. They block some actions. The more sensible apps of this type allow actions that shouldn't endanger anyone.
Killer Mobile, maybe not the ideal name for a developer of a safety-orientated app, has completed a fully functional prototype of an app which is likely to reach the market as CruiseControl. It works on Symbian devices and there will be versions for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and Android.
The company describes CruiseControl as "an easy to use, native application that serves to prevent distracting mobile use while driving." To achieve this it will prevent messaging and call usage when in the user's own car. However, it will compensate for this block on communication by sending auto-reply SMS messages to tell senders they can expect a reply shortly. Sensibly, the app will detect if the phone is connected to a hands-free headset, in which case the user can continue to take calls.
As an added feature, the app will send a GPS location-stamped text message to the user if a preset speed limit has been exceeded. This information may be read after the fact but it should serve as a cautionary reminder - or explain why the guy with the ticket book is flagging the car down.
4. Vin Diesel's little helper
There's a subtle difference between the Vin Diesel type of app and the Nice Auntie category, and it's not just that Vin has bigger biceps.
Vin needs real-time communication when he's escaping from danger by backing out of a parking garage at 120 miles per hour. He'd quite likely look for an app like DriveSafe.ly, which uses clever text-recognition to read text messages and emails out loud.
"Vin, you can slow down, the baddies drove into a tree because they were talking on their mobiles."
Not only does Vin hear this text message, the app tells his team something like: "The big guy is not available but will reply as soon as he is no longer a menace to everyone in Hollywood." Let's just hope the app doesn't say "he will revert to you" or anything similarly grotesque.
DriveSafe.ly also understands SMS shorthand. If the text message reads: "Baddies drove into tree LOL," the app will speak that part too.
5. No! Stay away from my car!
What can one say about this type of app other than "aaargh"? This category is reserved specially for apps that were thought out so badly that no one, surely, would want one.
The intentions are good. The technical execution may be splendid. But the eventual product is goofy.
One such "aaargh" app is Cell Cease. A teenager's parents would typically decide what settings it should have, such as the ability to receive 911 calls or calls from certain allowed numbers. Huh?
"Hello, son, I know you can answer me because I set my number as one of the allowed numbers on your phone. Are you driving and talking at the same time right now?"
"Yes, Dad, I'm steering past some aggressive trees and I'm talking to you."
The really goofy feature of this app is its built-in speed limit. It deactivates pretty well everything on the phone if the GPS detects that the instrument is moving at more than 5 miles per hour. It doesn't matter if the owner of the phone is the driver or a passenger - or riding in a bus, train or rickshaw. If the phone is going faster than 5 mph, it shuts down.
"Sorry, I may lose this connection, I'm about to stride briskly."
6. The Professor wants you to think
Maybe this shouldn't be a full category because I've discovered only one app that fits it. Actually the app doesn't exist yet, but when it does it'll slot in perfectly here.
The app-to-be in question currently has the name of Driver Riskometer. It doesn't let anyone monitor where you and your vehicle are. It won't stop you using the text message service or making and receiving calls.
What is does, and reportedly to great effect, is challenge you to be a safer driver.
It is the brainchild of Prof. Ashraf Khalil, an assistant professor of computer science at Abu Dhabi University. While you're driving you'll use the app to track the distance covered, average speed and time spent on your mobile phone during the journey. It also shows how many calls you made and how much time you spent thumbing the keypad.
Your driving performance is then calculated on a scale of one (very safe) to seven (very risky). In tests so far, drivers who were rumoured to be "lousy" were motivated to become "not so terrifying", or equivalent expressions, after using the app.
The professor envisages that the app may be more useful in countries such as the United Arab Emirates where it isn't illegal to use a mobile while you drive. I reckon it could be just as effective in countries where you can be fined for texting or calling when you're driving. People still do it even if it's illegal, they just do it more sneakily.
