Last week I wrote about my frustration with the lack of cellphone etiquette in the public sphere. I wrote about the blur of boundary lines between private and public and the lack of propriety in social settings.
These are the small problems. Clearly, the much larger concern is that cell phones take lives. Texting while driving is the bane of our generation and no matter how often we are warned, we still make snap decisions to text. Sometimes we do it because the text seems urgent and sometimes we do it because the stretch of road seems deserted. Either way, such snap decisions are always dangerous and wrong. The text was never that urgent and the road was never that deserted.
We can cry about it from today till tomorrow, but people are still going to text. A friend emailed me in response to my article on Cell Phone Etiquette to tell me of a fabulous app that has recently come on market. This will mark the first time that I have ever used this column to promote a product. I make an exception because if it works, this app will save lives.
It is called one tap and you can read about it at www.getonetap.com. It has been released for android and is poised to be released shortly for Iphones. I downloaded it as soon as I heard about it because this can be a life saver. This app will field your texts and calls and reply in text that you are driving. It will also estimate (based on past experience) how long your drive will be and inform the caller when you will be available. Should you choose to, you can instruct the app to forward calls to your Bluetooth device.
I don’t know how well it works, I have yet to test it. But if it works, it will take the decision right out of our hands. We will never text and drive, not just because we won’t want to, but because we won’t be able to.
Choose to give up choice. What an idea.