For a long time, our car accident lawyers in San Diego have been talking about technology that will help prevent distracted drivers from having their attention taken off the road and put on a cell phone.

Finally, there are cell phone applications that block calls and text messages to motorists as reported by The New York Times.  In an effort to always prevent you from sustaining a personal injury out on the road, we want to inform you of ways that you can stop a car accident before it even happens.

Text-blocking apps for cell phones can help stop distracted driving car accidents.

Drivers are twenty-three times more likely to get in a car accident when they are making a phone call or texting someone.  There are several new types of text-blocking applications (or apps) that you can get for your cell phone, your teenage driver’s cell phone, or ones used by your employees.

Here’s a breakdown of four of the major ones:

1)  Textblocker is an app that will turn off your cell phone completely while in the car.  No text, e-mail, web surfing, or calls.  It becomes a useless brick.  If you’re in an automobile, it can tell a parent or boss while your phone is turned off.

2)  Izes Up pretty much follows the same route as Textblocker, turning off your phone and making it unable to perform any function.

3)  Zoom Safer can block text messages and phone calls, as well as send an auto reply message that “so-and-so is driving” when someone tries to contact you out on the road.  This is the only service where there’s a one-time fee as opposed to a monthly fee.

4) Cell Safety will stop you from texting and surfing the web while at the wheel, but you can still make phone calls on it.

Each of these apps uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) to detect when a cell phone is in motion and can turn off or block a signals to a caller when they are in a car.  Most of them have a feature for if you are a passenger in a car, not a driver, that allows you to ask the permission of a boss or parent to use the phone while in route somewhere.

The down side to this is that all these apps only work on smart phones, such as Blackberries and Droid phones, not the ones used by the majority of people.  Until there is a way to block all text messages and phone calls out on the road, distracted driving from mobile technology remains a problem.

Our firm’s car accident lawyers think that this is a great step forward in the fight to eliminating cell phone usage by car drivers (with the exception of calling 9-1-1 in an emergency).  The day will come when cell phones will cease to work on the road, but until that day comes, turn off your phone, hide it in your car, and don’t give it another thought until you reach your destination safely.

Drive now, text or call later.

Call us now at 1-858-551-2090 for a FREE consultation with an experienced San Diego car accident lawyer or click here to submit your case for a FREE online review. There is no fee until we win your case.