NEW YORK (AP) — When does a smartphone make you dumb?

When you're driving.

Dialing or texting on a phone is a proven distraction when you're behind the wheel. And as "smart" as today's phones are, they can't compensate for human folly. Phone makers and software developers are making a valiant effort to create elegant technical solutions, but, try as they might, they've yet to solve the problem of distracted driving.

A new survey, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, exposes just how severe the problem is —especially among young drivers. In the survey, about 58 percent of high school seniors said they had texted or emailed while driving during the previous month. About 43 percent of high school juniors acknowledged they did the same thing.


The industry doesn't have a surefire cure. There's a bevy of phone applications (or apps) that silence a phone when they detect that the device is moving at car speed. Although they carry names like "SecuraFone" these solutions all have limitations that prevent them from being widely adopted.

One big shortcoming is that they can't tell drivers from passengers. Most of the apps assume any phone that's travelling at more than 10 miles per hour belongs to a driver. Of course, that phone might belong to someone in the back seat, or on a bus or train. That means these apps come with easy override buttons —which could also be used by a driver. The app isn't "smart" enough to know the difference.



ZoomSafer and CellControl are two companies that offer slightly more sophisticated solutions: apps that make sure you're in your car before putting the phone in "driver mode." The phone listens for a wireless signal, either from the car's built-in electronic system or from a proprietary device that plugs into the engine-diagnostics port. The phone is wirelessly linked to the car, so people who don't usually drive the vehicle can ride as passengers without having their phones go silent. Using these apps, a driver who leaves his car behind and rides the bus won't have his phone silenced.


But these apps share a shortcoming with the simpler, motion-sensing ones: none of them work with Apple Inc.'s iPhone, the single most popular phone in the country.

The iPhone doesn't let apps run "in the background" —that is, while the user does other things. That means the safe-driving apps are usually limited to BlackBerrys or those running Google Inc.'s Android software.

One startup company has devised a novel way of encouraging safe driving, even on iPhones. Its idea is to use an economic incentive: it records users' behavior and pays them when they leave the phone alone until the end of the trip.


The National Transportation Safety Board hasn't weighed in on any apps. Its recommendation is a human solution: Just don't use your phone at all while driving, even if you're using a hands-free device.

The Transportation Department is also betting on human, rather than technological solutions. It's awarding $2.4 million to Delaware and California for pilot projects to combine more police enforcement with publicity campaigns against distracted driving. Similar pilot projects in Syracuse, N.Y., and Hartford, Conn., are successfully reducing distracted driving, Transportation Secretary LaHood said last week.






Associated Press writer Joan Lowy in Washington contributed to this report.

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