Alarmed by the rising number of crashes caused by distracted drivers, Professor Daniel Raviv has invented a software program that can block a motorist from sending or receiving text messages from behind the wheel of a moving vehicle.
The invention was promising enough to prompt Florida Atlantic University to patent the program and to spur PortNexus, a socially conscious technology firm in Dania Beach, to begin implementing it.
“It blocks the driver only and allows passengers to continue to text,” said Raviv, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at FAU. “If we save one person’s life, this is worth it, most definitely.”
The invention provides one technological answer to growing concerns about texting while driving, just as lawmakers in Congress and the Florida Legislature are moving to educate drivers and toughen enforcement.
Car-happy Florida has one of the most lenient laws in the nation on distracted driving.
A law enacted two years ago bans texting while driving but allows motorists to use mobile devices to make phone calls. Texting is considered a “secondary offense,” meaning that citations are issued only when police stop a car for other reasons, such as speeding or running a red light.
“It hasn’t worked,” said State Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach. “Enforcement has not been there. It would be so much better and safer for everyone if the officer is able to stop the car as soon as the officer sees the driver is texting. That stops accidents.”
Sachs proposed a bill that would declare texting while driving a primary offense. It would double the usual $30 fine for violations in a school zone. It would still allow drivers to make phone calls. And, like current law, it would allow texting when a motorist is stopped in traffic or at stoplights.
“I don’t want to punish people; I want them to be educated,” Sachs said. “Thirty dollars doesn’t hurt anybody. They don’t have to go to court. It’s not a moving violation. It’s a ticket, similar to a parking ticket. But I want to teach the young people of Florida, and older people too, that this is a type of behavior we can’t continue to do.”
The bill was headed toward passage in the state Senate but died along with other legislation when the session abruptly ended last month amid a budget standoff. Sachs will renew her attempt next year.
South Florida Congressman Ted Deutch, meanwhile, has introduced a bill in the U.S. House designed to encourage Florida and other states to declare distracted driving a primary offense and toughen enforcement. If they comply, states would become eligible to share $23 million of new highway safety grants.
“As someone who has three teenagers, I speak for the vast majority of parents who worry every time their kids go out on the road, knowing what other kids are doing and hoping their kids are not doing the same thing,” said Deutch, D-Boca Raton.
Traffic-safety studies have found that taking your eyes off the road at 55 mph for 4.6 seconds — the typical time for reading a text — means you are not paying attention while your car covers the length of a football field.
In Florida last year, nearly 42,000 crashes statewide were attributed to distracted driving, causing more than 35,000 injuries and 210 deaths. Highway-safety officials say that’s an under-count.
After seeing distracted drivers wavering down the crowded roads of South Florida, Raviv decided to do something about it.
“They are either drunk or texting,” he said. “It’s driving blindfolded. When you text, it’s like closing your eyes for a few seconds. It can cause a lot of damage.”
His software program, being developed by PortNexus, is designed to prevent mobile devices from downloading text messages when held by drivers moving faster than a specified speed, say 10 mph.
When fully developed, it would allow a mobile network carrier to distinguish the driver from passengers in a vehicle by tracking clusters of devices moving at the same speed and picking the one in the front left corner, where the steering wheel is bound to be.
PortNexus is using this technology to create products for businesses with drivers and for families that take a pledge to stop texting while driving to ensure safety and avoid liability. A version available for sale in about two months can be installed on smartphones, coupled with a sensor placed on the windshield.
But Raviv and PortNexus say the software program eventually could be used by cellphone carriers to routinely block texting while driving, either as a legal requirement or as an option for consumers who get a break on insurance premiums.
“Once we are able to implement Dr. Raviv’s patents, it will become standard,” predicted Steve Jones, CEO of PortNexus. “Nothing will be added to your phone, it will just be there. Like all technology, as it becomes real, it becomes invisible.”
Wgibson@Tribune.com, 202-824-8256
