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DriveAssist Can be Successful
by Andrew McCaskey
How to Make DriveAssist Work PDF Print E-mail
Written by Andrew McCaskey
Wednesday, 15 October 2008 15:31
Sometimes the best of ideas don’t have much of a chance in the real world. This great idea that is going to fail unless carriers do one thing.
That’s the case with the system developed by Aegis Mobility. DriveAssist will read the status of your cellphone, determine that you are present in a a vehicle in motion, and then put your phone into a “hold all calls” mode. When you return to a halt or are no longer moving above a certain speed, then the phone call will go through.
Every rational factor points to this system’s favor: The effect on concentration and vehicle control, numerous studies equating driving impairment on the same level as high blood alcohol, teenage driver deaths while talking and texting, and just plain annoyance of drivers talking on the cellphone when they should be driving. It’s a factor in at least 10% of the crashes on the roads where over 41,000 people die each year. Every parent of a teenager wants this service, and we all want the other drivers on the road to subscribe. We just don’t particularly want it ourselves.
Thomas Edison was granted his first patent (#90,646), for an electric voting machine. The purpose of the electric vote recorder was to speed deliberation and legislation. The problem is, legislators did not want their deliberation and voting sped up. And, most particularly, they did not want to have their votes on every issue tallied up for the world to see, or indicators as far as who had voted and who was taking measure of the direction of the political winds.
The only way that DriveAssist is going to fly is through market forces. If we assume that today’s insurance rates capture the inherent risk in the system with free-range wireless use in moving automobiles, the fastest way to gain the benefits will be a direct reduction in insurance rates for those in the program. If you can prove that every wireless phone used by your family of teenage and adult drivers is locked to DriveAssist.
It’s a sure moneymaker for the wireless service providers, as well – if they keep it to say $5 a month to get a large uptake. Oh wait. They like for you to use up those minutes on the freeway with idle chatter. Nevermind. I meant insurance carriers – not wireless carriers.
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