Mobile apps are “in” this year in case you didn’t know. Things that are “in” can make great gifts but it is not always easy to find mobile apps by hobbies or interests. So “who would like a Motolingo app for Christmas?” you ask. Do you know anyone that has any one of the following traits?
- wants the latest cell phone accessory (jawbone prime for example)?
- likes cars and everything associated with cars?
- forgets to change their oil, rotate tires or even buy gas?
- wants to spend less on gas?
- is afraid their car is going to break down?
- wants to reduce their carbon footprint/ be green?
If yes, give MotoCarma a try. If the answer is no, check out www.freshtrend.com to find something else. Happy Holidays!
After having spent a significant amount of time with the brains behind Motolingo, learning more about the application of its products, the good intention behind each feature, etc, I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like if my Mom gained access to something like MotoRiety the minute I gained access to her car keys. It was bad enough getting verbally alerted by her in the passenger seat whenever I was going too fast and watching her extend her leg to the non-existent brake whenever I approached a stop sign or a red light. Still, she had only the best intentions: she wanted me to become a responsible driver.
Would she have purchased something like MotoRiety? Absolutely. (I’ve already asked.) I know for a fact that as soon as I was old enough to drive alone she, like any good parent or guardian, would worry. I may not have liked it at the time, but I think in some way, getting updates of my driving behavior would have put her mind at ease. Having access to email and/or Twitter, she could have known if I was speeding, known if I was accelerating aggressively (aka not driving green), known if I was texting someone while in motion, etc. I guarantee you I would have gotten in trouble, I guarantee we would have had some good discussions of why this behavior was unacceptable, but I also guarantee that I would have shaped up… and probably negotiated a hike in allowance if my driving reports proved so!
MotoRiety had value then, but I think it’s even more relevant to today’s teen. The bold headline, “reckless and distracted driving is the #1 killer of teens in America” is everywhere these days. For this reason, I am a huge proponent of what Motolingo can offer parents and guardians today.
I couldn’t attend the Distracted Driving Summit but watched some of the webcast today. Tons of useful statistics and opinions from researchers and industry experts. Jim Lehrer at PBS covered the story and reported that distracted driving is “at epidemic proportions” in America in an interview with Ray LaHood, U.S. Transportation Secretary.
Changing personal behavior is difficult but I believe that there will be some actions from this summit that might help. Making distracted driving into something that is unacceptable socially seems to be one of the pillars of the solution. Another complimentary approach is to provide certain segments of the driving population with a technology that could be used to detect distracted driving.
Monitoring for Driving While Texting (DWT) and Driving While Distracted (DWD) incidents could have a serious impact in the following two segments of the driving public:
1) Teens. Parents and others monitor distracted driving to make sure it is not reaching dangerous levels.
2) Business fleets. Companies have liability risks and considerable costs involved in accidents. They have financial incentive to monitor fleet drivers to enforce policies.
Just by starting there, we could address over 10% of the cars on the road. And a crucial 10% at that…the crash rate for teens is nearly 4 times that of drivers 20 and older according to an article from Edmunds. Businesses should be motivated too – the average cost per injury accident is $128,000 according to an article from Cindy Brauer at www.automotive-fleet.com.
I’m looking forward to the follow-on to this summit where solutions are discussed as much as the problem.
First of all, I’ll state that I am not a lawyer and do not consider anything in this blog to be considered legal advice. However, if you are familiar at all with the legal system in the US, it seems that there are legal risks for businesses and parents when an employee or teen driver gets into an accident while using their phone. Informed Workplace has a nice video that describes how companies should put policies in place and train employees about specific company policies.
I imagine the risks vary by industry. The government is worried. The NTSB recently banned employees from talking and texting while driving and has recommended a cell phone use ban for school bus and motorcoach drivers. More on that can be found here. All business fleets should assess the risk and adopt policies and technologies as needed.
Believe it or not, I think parents might have something to worry about too. Legalmatch has some thoughts to ponder if your teen just backed over the mailbox while texting.
Policies, training, bans and laws are just not going to cut it IMHO.
Recently Ford announced their support for laws against Driving While Texting (DWT). This could help drive customers to their Sync solution with voice command capabilities. I would hope that a ban against DWT would help, but, according to some studies, the risk of an accident is still significant even with hands-free devices. The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a study in July of 2009 that stated there is “little, if any, difference between the use of hand-held and hands-free phones in contributing to the risk of a crash while driving distracted. Hands-free or hand-held, we have found that the cognitive distraction is significant enough to degrade a driver’s performance. We recommend that drivers not use these devices when driving, except in an emergency. Moreover, we are convinced that legislation forbidding the use of handheld cell phones while driving may not be effective in improving highway safety since it will not address the problem. In fact, such legislation may erroneously imply that hands-free phones are safe to use while driving.”
Technology can help make our roads safer and enforce laws but should be chosen carefully. Some technologies such as texting through voice commands are focused on eliminating the problem. However, if voice commands also distract drivers, the technology is too narrow in focus, and may only shift the problem. Another limitation of this approach is the adoption rate. Not everyone will be able to purchase a technology that eliminates a problem such as DWT.
Other technologies focus on enforcing a law. There are a couple of basic ways that technology has been used in law enforcement in the past: confirming a violation and automatically ticketing for infractions. Using a breathalyzer is a good example of how a driver suspicious of a DWI can be confirmed. Traffic light cameras check for running a red-light and can automatically ticket in many cases.
So regardless of whether DWT become illegal or not, technology should be considered for avoiding and detecting dangerous driving practices as appropriate. Parents and businesses can use the technology to monitor with or without a law and, for now, drivers can adopt voice-controlled texting if they believe it will help reduce distractions.
Take an hour-long road trip and I’m willing to bet that when you get around to passing the guy who was lane drifting in front of you or the lady who nearly side swiped you a bit earlier, they’d each have one thing in common. They were on their phones. You run a search today on “driving while texting” and you’ll find not only that discussion is so widespread, but that search results point to a nearly unanimous verdict: driving while texting is dangerous and something needs to be done about it. Enter MotoRiety, Motolingo’s newest addition to its product suite. With MotoRiety, you can start holding loved ones and employees accountable for this risky habit they should (and in some states, MUST) kick!
While MotoRiety is still in its beta phase, we are actively seeking out participants willing to provide detailed feedback and more importantly, be a part of the solution that addresses this unsafe behavior that’s on everyone’s radar. Joining the beta program will make you eligible for a waived monthly fee for 12 months, totaling a savings of more than $100. Additionally, at the end of the program we will provide the released version of the software free of charge. At the end of your 30-day trial period, if you are unsatisfied with your MotoRiety experience, you can return the hardware and not pay anything (less shipping and handling).
For more details on MotoRiety features, click here. If you are interested in joining the beta program, email sales@motolingo.com today and we’ll get you started right away!
We are close to launching our latest mobile product that monitors driver behavior along with vehicle health and usage. This is MotoCarma on steroids! If you are a parent of a teen driver or a fleet manager and interested in beta testing, please shoot me an email .
I just spent several hours on the phone with AT&T to resolve a $600+ monthly bill. I got an email alert about high data usage and decided we might want to check it out since the plan has unlimited data. Come to find out, the local retail store hadn’t really changed the service plan or combined into a family plan when we purchased a new phone. Actually, they didn’t do anything but take our money for the new phone. Amazing.
I will say that the corporate AT&T support was helpful. At least the first person I spoke with was helpful, knowledgeable and friendly. The other two, not so much. Plus, I had to start from the beginning with the latter two. Why do we have to start over with each person? Even if they did a verbal handoff with us on the line, it would show that they tried to help –would be a nice gesture IMHO.
Anyway, not really wanting to plug products but MobilMine will keep an eye on our texting and minutes usage in the future now that we have the correct plans setup. Supports my theory that by the time you get the alert email from your carrier, you are screwed. Billshrink.com is a great way to help pick the right plan - just make sure that the plan you choose is really setup.
I’m now waiting for my letter from AT&T apologizing for the retail store’s mistakes. Maybe they can just insert the apology into one of the marketing flyers they send every couple of weeks.
We were working on some new-to-world telematics and decided to spin this MobilMine 2.0 product off now because it is pretty cool too. We’ve taken our contacts backup capability in v1.0 and added texting and multimedia messaging backups. All the text messages on your phone will be sent to an email account for a quick and automated backup. Whether it is for legal billing, personal paranoia or just to be able to search content in your text messages and reminisce, 2.0 will do it.
My personal favorite in 2.0 is the overage prevention. You can setup an email to be sent to you every day or week with a summary of how many call minutes and text messages you have left for the month. I’m personally going to move to a family plan soon with AT&T and will use that feature to allow me to pick the cheapest plan. Yes, call me a cheapo but buying more minutes than you need is just a waste.
Okay, if my wife can’t make calls for half of the month then I might upgrade my plan. But in the meantime, we won’t get charged for overages by our friendly carriers.
That was the overwhelming response to our ideas at Microsoft’s first ever Mobile Incubation Week MIW. Although we didn’t win, we got some great feedback and are moving full steam ahead. The fact that we were neck and neck with companies that already have received a very generous round of VC funding was a nice consolation prize – and we got a Zune.
Your car’s service is a lot like diet and exercise – you can put it off but may pay the price later. Consumer Reports even put some costs to neglecting service and repairs in a recent article.
$4000 for a new engine is serious stuff. Our goal is to let your Smartphone take care of service reminders and remote diagnostics by talking to your car’s computers. It’s all about an automated, worry-free lifestyle. If I don’t have it in my calendar on my computer or phone, it’s fairly likely that I’ll forget it. Now, my car is just like my other appointments, automatic and out of my mind. I have enough clutter in my mind and other things to worry about.
