Controlling Driving Habits of Teenagers Through Cell Phones

Raising teenagers is a daunting task, ensuring that they are driving in a civil manner on roads is even more daunting. How to track a teenager, who experiences road rage, regularly goes over speed limits and uses his/her cell phone while driving is a haunting question parents face today. AT&T plans to introduce a new system that will answer all these questions very soon.

We all know that talking on the phone without using hearing aids or texting while driving is not only prohibited but can be fatal and has been a known source for causing driver distractions that result in accidents. The question that is on the table is how to track a teenager while he/she is driving alone?

AT&T the US telecom giant plans to solve this problem by introducing a system that has the ability to use a car’s on-board computers and the driver phone to provide real time information on not only the whereabouts of the driver but also on his/her driving habits.

A system that is currently in its prototype stage and is being designed to work on the cloud network. With the passage of time the system will be used to log activities of drivers of any age but currently the system is being designed to monitor a child’s driving behavior in real time.

It will allow parents to see if their child is using the phone or is SMS-ing and provides the provision to even disable the phone remotely. The system that is plugged into a port of the engine sends user information such as speed of the automobile, acceleration and de-acceleration rate, steering movements and braking abruptness. Combined with the GPS coordinates gives the monitoring person a holistic view of how a driver is driving. Additionally an application in the phone sends out information regarding the phone usage of the driver.

These two streams of information are then analyzed in an AT&T cloud based system, an additional stream of information such as speed limits or specific road restrictions are added into the information. Resultantly alerts based on this information are sent to a parent’s phone pointing out where the child is, whether he/she is exceeding or has exceeded speed limits.

The information also tells if the child is wearing a seat belt or has braked or steered abruptly and on top of that even exposes if the abrupt steering or braking was done at a time when the phone was being used.

The system provides in depth detailed information on a drivers driving habits and can be very beneficial for parents who worry about the way there children drive on the roads. Based on the provided information parents can take decision related to their child’s driving permissions.

AT&T envisions the system to be adaptable to different ages in the future and also claims that slowly but gradually insurance companies will start coming on-board and will provide benefits to drivers who have these systems installed in their cars.

Currently this system is in its infancy stage but has a lot of potential in the coming years. As AT&T plans to sell or license the system therefore it will available worldwide including Pakistan once it is commercialized and should find a niche market in Pakistan too.

Bad driving habits lead to a lot of financial and life loss all around the world including Pakistan, good and prompt decision making based on relevant and accurate driving stats can help save money and lives.