New device being developed to find people who use mobile while driving

By, 2016-04-30

It has happened to all of us, many times, while driving on Qatar’s roads. While peacefully driving down the road, a car swerves in your direction, scaring the living daylights out of you.

Heart in mouth, you glance at the unruly driver and see him/her busy texting on the phone. And all you can do is shake your head and move on.

But if recent developments are any indication, such errant drivers who use smartphones while driving could soon be brought to the book.

A new device, named ‘Textalyser,’ is being developed to check mobile phone usage while driving and it should be in the market soon, the expert revealed.

The gadget can help the police if an accident takes place. The device can scan the involved motorists’ mobile phones and find out whether the driver was using the phone at the time of the accident. This can be used just like the breath analyser.

“The ‘Textalyser,’ will help the authorities to know whether mobile phone was the villain in an accident, especially in a scenario in which citing privacy reasons, police may not open the phone to check the call list or data usage.

“Most of the phones are password protected and cannot be accessed freely. But the new device can help the police in this regard without breaching the privacy of the person and provide data about the phone usage,” a traffic safety expert told Gulf Times.

The use of the phones when driving has been attributed to a significant number of accidents, and the increasing trend of accessing the Internet, is all the more threatening. The practise is becoming quite common among both the genders, it could be seen.

“Many motorists are addicted to the use of mobile phones and hence do not care about the rules, putting their own lives and the lives of others in danger,” the expert said.

Citing his experience, a regular commuter on Doha roads observed that if a vehicle is being driven either recklessly or on the contrary unusually slow, in most cases the person at the wheel would be busy on smartphone.

“If I see such behaviour from a car in front, I immediately shift tracks to avoid trouble,” he added.

Courtesy: gulf-times.com