Category SOFT P30 One For the Road: A Texting Management App to Promote

Safe Driving

Abstract In 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported that of 30,057

fatal crashes in the U.S. during 2013, 411 were involved cell phone use

as a driver distraction. This accounts for 14% of all distraction-related

fatal crashes. The principal problem of cell phone distraction is its use

as a medium of communication; upon operating a motor vehicle, many

drivers, as evidenced by the DTS compiled accident data, do not cease

their use of cellphones. Two key solutions come to mind to combat this

problem: either deactivate cell phone use temporarily while the vehicle

is under operation, or introduce a way for the phone itself to notify

people sending messages to the user that said user is driving. The

latter solution has yet to be attempted; thus, the purpose of this project

was to create integrated cell phone software that allows a phone to

detect when it is being used in a moving vehicle and subsequently alert

those in communication with the driver that the person in question is

operating a vehicle. The app will be designed in Java to seamlessly run

in the background of a phone’s operating system (Android OS only)

upon being started, measuring movement speed via the phone’s

accelerometer and triggering a conditional response should the

phone’s speed exceed a set limit. Thus, those in communication with

the driver would be dissuaded from texting them, reducing distraction

and potentially saving lives.

Bibliography National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA) Motor Vehicle Traffic

Crash Data

Resource Page. The U.S. Department of Transportation National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration, April 2015. Web. 11 Feb. 2017.

crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812132.



"Meet Android Studio." Android Developers. Google Inc., n.d. Web. 11

Feb. 2017. developer.android.com/studio/intro/index.html.



"Introduction to Android." Android Developers. Google Inc., n.d. Web.

11 Feb. 2017. developer.android.com/guide/index.html.
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