How to Outsmart Your Smartphone

The goal of every automaker is to better integrate your smartphone with your car.

The goal of the U.S. Department of Transportation is to stop you from using all those features while driving.

A technological fix to combat distracted driving is the goal of several applications and cellphone service providers, but figuring out a way to keep people from texting while driving or otherwise operating their smartphones may prove difficult. Fundamentally, these phone-blocking mechanisms ask that you pay to deny yourself use of your smartphone.

It seems as though people who would pay for a phone-blocking service would also be the ones who would not answer their phones, text or surf the web while driving in the first place. Additionally, it’s not clear how the apps will know when you’re in the driver’s seat rather than a passenger (or on a bus or train, for that matter). Phone blockers are targeted specifically to the parents of teenage drivers, but this may have its flaws, as well.

Here is a roundup of the new distracted driving apps available for purchase.

Sprint announced the Drive First app for Android phones at a cost of $2 per month. The app redirects calls to voice mail, automatically responds to texts with an alert that the recipient is driving, and gives parents and employers the ability to set Drive First’s terms through web portal access. It does allow three key contacts in case of emergency as well as GPS navigation. The idea being that a parent would program him or herself, a spouse and 911 as the contacts in case their teen driver runs into trouble on the road.

Each time you run the app it records your trip and driving behavior and rewards you points. Is there a catch? Some reviews say that if you lose your Internet connection the trip info is lost, and you have to leave the app running during the entire drive, draining battery life.

But financial rewards may be the only way to break drivers of their smartphone addictions.