You WILL Drive Safely
The Rise in Automated Parenting
2010-01-26
By Eric Easter

When I was about nine, I cursed at a neighbor kid who I thought was guilty of stealing a toy of mine. In the five minutes it tool to walk across the street to my house, my mother had been informed of the incident and was ready for me at the door with a resounding smack across the mouth.That’s how parenting used to work. Everybody was a possible snitch and no bad deed went unreported.

Well, now there’s an app for that. Or more specifically, a whole new genre of devices that aim to provide that third eye that sees all and tells all about how your children behave when they’re away from you, at least while they are in the car.

The goal of these systems? To stop teens who drive from being statistics

Like any three groups of parents, each the three major teen driving control systems coming on the market takes its own unique approach to what kind of discipline it will apply to stop the kids from acting out from behind the wheel.

Textecution. 

“Textecution” is a cell phone embedded software that reduces the larger problem of teen driving to one major issue – texting while driving. By the manufacturer’s numbers, texting makes drivers 22 times more likely to be involved in an accident.

Their solution is fairly simple and basic. The tool tracks the speed of the cellphone’s movement and automatically disables the texting function if the speed increases above 10mph. Similarly the function comes back on below the speed limitation or, of course, at full stop.

This of course bears a couple of unanswered questions. Specifically, what about the teen passengers of teen drivers whose phone may also be enabled with the software? And what of you have to jump into a cab or a bus in an emergency? If the teen can disable the function in those situations, then he or she can disable them at any time –right?

MyKey from FORD. 

Needless to say I would probably not be writing this at all if Big Auto weren’t also jumping into the fray whole hog. That gives the effort a whole new dimension.

MyKey is part of an overall goal on the part of Ford to (in the words of one company spokesperson) “function like a consumer electronics company.” Essentially the car manufacturer is betting that new gadget innovations are enough fuel to launch a new car product to market. Certainly cheaper and more efficiently than a new body style or engine.

The approach of MyKey is, like Textecution, mildly punitive, meaning there is a definitive negative reaction to a series of bad actions on the part of the driver/ Again here, MyKey starts from a  fairly basic premise – sure, Kid, you can have a key to the car, but your key does different things than Daddy’s.

Based on Ford’s research, parents are most worried about teens who don’t belt up, gun the gas and crank their tunes at distracting and annoying volumes. Likewise, MyKey addresses those three issues. head-on, plus a few other for good measure such an “empty” warning light at 75 miles to go instead of the usual 50.

Parents have the choice of two major options: Limit the volume to 44 percent of maximum and/or limit the speed to a max of 80mph. Additionally, a “persistent beltminder” mutes the stereo volume and will not disengage mute until seatbelts are locked. If there is a consistent strategy at Ford, it’s clearly “hit them where it hurts most – the iPod.”

TIWI 

TIWI, am internet-connected software/device hybrid that is installed into a vehicle gives teens a bit more credit for responsibility. From their vantage point, adults and teens get distracted at about the same rate, no group being necessarily safer drivers than other just based on age.

Instead, TIWI is intended to address what their salespeople consider to be the “inexperience” of teen drivers that make being behind the wheel a dicey proposition.

TIMI, then, leaves all the punitive action completely up to the parents. They aim to be, as in my childhood, example, the nosy neighbor that rats on you before you get home. How parents want to address the issue is their business after.

That all sound very reasonable, but the flip side of TIWI is that it in trade for relative freedom of movement, it’s much more Big Brother-ish than its competitors. In spirit, if not in function, TIWI is essentially the car equivalent of nanny-cam, just without the camera.

TIWI is a smart monitoring system to put it most simply. Using GPS and data installed by its makers, the device knows the speed limits of the location in which the car is driving. Each time a driver violates the set speed limit, a report is sent to a personalized web page that parents may access via the web or smartphone. That same system will also send text alerts in real time, if that’s what you require.

Parents have complete control over how extensive they want the monitoring to be. For example, a mother might preset a destination and route to school. If Mary Sue veers from that route or never makes it , Mom is alerted via text in real time. Similarly, if Mary Sue makes it, Mom is also notified.

If that’s not hovering enough for you, the device also doubles as a cellphone, meaning once you get an alert that your child speeding, you can call the device and scream at your little loved one to slow his roll immediately or suffer the consequences.

This is either the best invention of all time or creepy as hell. But I suppose that all depends on the relationship you have with you kid. Either way, the age of cyber-parenting that started with child proof locks and cable channel blocking has taken an entirely new turn that is laser focused on safety, but will probably do very little in the way of easing parent’s minds when Junior takes the wheel. That’s a natural reaction. No level of technology is going to stop Dad from staying up worrying until Baby gets home safely.