Sep 14, 2011 1:23 PM,

Sprint Android app locks phones for driver safety

By Michelle Maisto

Sprint's Drive First app will be pre-installed on phones later this year. For now, parents, who might use it themselves, can download the Android app for $2 a month.

Sprint has teamed with Location Labs to offer an Android app intended to prevent phone-related distracted driving, an issue that leads to nearly 1,000 deaths a year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

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The Drive First app, which will soon also be available for BlackBerry devices and other operating systems "in coming months" is $2 a month. With drivers under the age of 20 constituting the largest group of distracted drivers, Sprint is marketing the app to parents — no doubt also guilty parties themselves — who can go online, select the phone they want to download the app to, and setup an account.

All Android phones launched after late in the third quarter will ship with the application pre-installed.

The app works by sensing, via GPS and cell tower triangulation, when the phone is moving faster than 10 mph, at which point it locks the device's screen, holding calls and texts. Customized messages can also be sent in response to text messages, alerting the sender that the user is driving. Emergency calls to 911 can still be dialed, and the locked display can be overridden — though parents can request to receive a message alerting them when this happens.

Can you hear the teen protests already? Working toward a middle ground, the app allows five numbers to ring through to a locked phone, as well as access to three apps — navigation and music being two natural choices.

The seriousness of distracted driving — a not entirely scientific test by Car and Driver found texting drivers to have slower response times than inebriated ones — has previously led the U.S. Department of Transportation to consider software that would prevent phones from working in cars. In a June 2010 survey from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 43% of teens admitted to using a phone behind the wheel, while 61% of adults said they did as well.

The Drive First app has also been programmed to account for traffic jams — don't expect to hop out and text. Users will need to be idle for a few minutes before the app will automatically unlock the phone.