New Toyota App Plays Bad Music When Teen Drivers Speed or Use Their Phone
If this can’t stop distracted driving, nothing can.
Ever since cell phones became popular, we’ve all been trying to figure out how to keep them from distracting drivers. Technology like Bluetooth and infotainment systems that read your text messages help, but Toyota may have figured out the best way yet to keep people off their phones while behind the wheel, particularly teenagers.
According to Automotive News, Toyota has collaborated with London ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi to create the Safe and Sound mobile app. Safe and Sound covers the basics like blocking social media posts and incoming calls when traveling over 9 mph, but it goes a few steps further than that.
When the app is activated, any time the driver (presumably a teen) tries using the phone while driving or if they go over the speed limit, it starts playing their parents’ Spotify playlist. The Spotify accounts for both the child and the parents are linked to Safe and Sound and it will play the child’s Spotify playlist when they’re behaving and switch to mom and dad’s music when they break the rules.
So a teen can try showing off to their friends by driving too fast and will quickly be embarrassed when a show tune from the musical Chicago starts playing instead of the latest Kendrick track. To many teenagers, the threat of being embarrassed is often much more effective than the threat of injury or death.
Luckily, you don’t need a Toyota to use this app, but you do need an Android. No word yet on whether or not this app is coming to iOS. For youngsters, this is another reason to go with Apple over Android.
