Car and Driver teams up with Chrysler to battle distracted driving

You jump in your car, start the engine, put it in gear and start driving.  As you head toward the other side of town where you have a business lunch appointment, you look at the clock and see that it's 11:40 AM.  You immediately utter a choice word-- that shall remain unprinted-- because you know that you're at least 30 minutes away and your appointment is at noon.  What do you do?  If you're like many people, you grab your cell phone and immediately become a distracted driver.

That scenario plays itself out on roads countless times a day placing drivers and others in danger.  Consider a few facts found on the Distraction.gov website:

• In 2008, almost 20 percent of all crashes in the year involved some type of distraction. (Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - NHTSA)
• Nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted driver, and more than half a million were injured. (Source: NHTSA)
• Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
• Using a cell phone use while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah)

Numerous studies indicate that distracted driving remains a major problem and serious concern on American roads.  In an effort to make roads safer, Car and Driver Magazine has teamed up with Chrysler to release a nifty smartphone app called Txt U L8r.

The Txt U L8r mobile app, when active, automatically reads incoming text messages and reads them out loud for drivers to hear.  The app then sends an automatic response saying that you are driving and will text the messenger back soon.  Effectively, drivers need not take their hands off the wheel or eyes off the road.

Txt U L8r appears to be a branded version of the DriveSafe.ly app developed by iSpeech.org.  Both apps are currently available as free downloads for Android and Blackberry devices.  The DriveSafe.ly site indicates versions of that app for Windows Mobile devices and the Apple iPhone are coming soon. 

Since I'm an iPhone user, I have not tried either app and can't say whether they perform as advertised.  If you use Txt U L8r or DriveSafe.ly, share your thoughts on the apps and rate their performance.

Download Txt U L8r for Android or Blackberry

Download DriveSafe.ly for Android or Blackberry