Tragedy Inspires Potential Solution To Distracted Driving
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - It's an unfortunate trend that claims thousands of lives each year, but some companies are trying to fix that.
Distracted driving, defined as any activity that could divert a person's attention away from the primary task of driving, killed more than 3,000 people in 2013, according to the official U.S. Government Website For Distracted Driving.
"It changed my world in a matter of a second when I got that phone call," Diane Misgen told CBS News.
Misgen's husband, Dave, was driving to meet a Colorado entrepreneur for a business meeting when he was struck and killed by a distracted teenage driver in 2008.
That entrepreneur was Scott Tibbits and he says the tragedy has changed his life forever and inspired him to do something.
"That's the event, you know, that changed my life, and changed Diane's life," Tibbits told CBS News.
Now, seven years later, Tibbits has launched the "groove," a small device that plugs into most vehicles and blocks phones from sending and receiving most data. While calls can go through, texts, emails and social media are all blocked during the car ride's duration.
"When you take everything up into the cloud and you don't have to have that app on the phone, it changes everything. That all happens when you take it up at the network level and do it from the network side of things," Tibbits told CBS News.
The system involves cellphone carriers cutting off messages and other data until the car is turned off. Tibbits' challenge now is to get mobile networks to work with him for change.
"Well, there's legal issues. Phone companies have to make sure they have protections in place so they don't get sued," Tibbits said. "There's just the fact that we're touching their network, which they're not always comfortable with."
Tibbits says he understands concerns, but that he's more focused on the potential to stop future tragedies.
"Being a parent, I cannot imagine getting a phone call that says there's been an accident," Tibbits said. "And everybody that's in this is in this because those phone calls are going to go away."
