By Jani Spede, CEO, The Canary Project

If your teen has taken a pledge, does that mean you can check the potential harm or unwanted behavior off your list?

Research on the effectiveness of pledges suggests that you cannot – and more importantly – should not. Analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a “virginity pledge.” Similarly, researchers of cyber bullying pledges commented, “Pledges lose their meaning if everyone is doing it because it ceases to be non-normative.”

A pledge can be the beginning – but not the beginning and the end – to a behavior change. As I read more articles from experts on how to make popular virginity and bullying pledges effective, I quickly discovered that the same proactive approaches must accompany distracted driving pledges in order for them to work.

One key to getting pledges to work, according to experts, is illumination. Parents must keep a dialogue open and provide incentives, reminders and reinforcement. Not much will be achieved by simply asking your teen, “Did you text and drive today.” You’ll likely get eyes that roll and “Jeez, Mom!” A similar response might come from asking your virginity-pledge taking teen, “Did you have sex with anyone today?”

Studies have shown that the most effective way to reach teens is with a combined approach of education and reflection. I contacted Stan Davis, who has done extensive research on pledges, and told him about Canary, our app that tracks exactly when and how your teen uses a smartphone on the road. “I think there is promise in having the individual make an estimate and then having data to confirm or deny their own estimate,” he said, adding that it could have the same positive impact that journaling about food intake can have on diet and nutrition.

Borrowing from the ideas Davis and other experts suggest to help change teens behavior, and applying them to distracted driving, I offer the following tips. But wait, before reading these tips – and this is by far the most critical piece of all – you, as a parent, must be willing to do the same. If you are setting a poor example by driving distracted, this will never work. Pot, meet kettle! For those parents that care enough to lead by example and save lives, read on:

Predict: As Davis offered up, teens (and I say this goes for parents too) should estimate how often they currently use their phones while driving. Some experts say that this will be most effective if the teen does not turn in the estimate to the parent. It is important to write the prediction down.

Commit: Commit to improving your current trend by some percentage. Set weekly achievable goals, even if they’re baby steps.

Encourage: Help teens see their potential to be among the safest drivers and part of the solution to a huge problem. Let’s face it, we are counting on this generation!

Reflect: Talk about the day’s distracted driving news (reports on accidents, status of states’ distracted driving laws, new statistics, etc.). Point out all the distracted drivers on the roads. Honor anything your teens do to help prevent others from driving distracted (offering to be a “designated texter,” etc.).

Track/Measure: Use an app like Canary to track exactly when you and your teens use smartphones while driving. Review these “report cards” each week and keep a conversation going about how you are both doing.

Reward: Develop a reward system for excellent driving. It could be a respite from chores, a shopping trip, a movie or tickets to a game. Be willing to invest in this. It will be worth every penny.

Information can be sobering. Measuring performance improves performance.

With the right tools and a proactive approach, parents can be at the forefront of the battle against teen distracted driving.

It all comes down to how proactive and accountable you are willing to be and how much you care.

May 13, 2013 — COLUMBIA, S.C. — Businesses can now use an app to help keep their employees from causing injury or death by using smartphones while driving. The Canary project announced Corporate Canary, a new commercial version of its Canary distracted driving prevention app, priced as low as $1.99 per user, per year.

Recent studies demonstrate the need for such measures. One found that only 32 percent of companies are “very confident” that their distracted driving enforcement methods are effective. Another showed that nearly half of adult commuters admit to texting while driving.

A jury’s $21 million award last year against Coca-Cola Refreshments USA Inc. demonstrates the potential liability businesses face when their employees use cellphones while driving company vehicles. A Coca-Cola employee was driving a company truck while using a cellphone when the truck crashed into a Texas woman’s car, causing spinal injury.

“To limit liability, companies are ramping up their safe-driving policies,” said Jani Spede, CEO of The Canary Project. “Companies we’ve spoken to tell us they cannot afford for these policies to exist only on paper. They want to take extra security measures. Corporate Canary helps them do just that and at a price any organization with on-the-road employees can afford.”

Corporate Canary notifies managers when employees use their employer-provided iPhones or Android phones while driving company vehicles. Reports track when a driver talks, texts, checks email or uses social media while the vehicle is in motion. Corporate Canary also monitors when employees speed. Managers can choose to receive daily or weekly reports on employees’ driving records. Importantly, the app can be configured to track employees only during business hours, respecting the employees’ privacy when they are not on the clock.

Corporate Canary also tells managers exactly where their employees are and provides a detailed dashboard and downloadable reports that show each time each driver uses the phone while on the road, giving managers information and evidence for policy enforcement.

“The logs also help companies reward their safest drivers for honoring company policies,” Spede added.

Businesses can try Corporate Canary free for 14 days. Corporate Canary’s annual subscription fee is based on the number of drivers monitored. The price is as low as $1.99 per user, per year. Discounts for nonprofits and monthly contracts are also available, as is custom pricing for companies that have more than 1,000 drivers.

More information on Corporate Canary is available at www.thecanaryproject.com/Corporate-Canary.

ABOUT THE CANARY PROJECT

The Canary Project (www.thecanaryproject.com) is an initiative dedicated to curbing distracted driving, especially among teen drivers. Collaborating with partners who share a passion for safe driving and saving lives, The Canary Project supports existing driving safety programs and creates educational and awareness resources that will help prevent distracted driving and create safer roads. See the Canary Project blog. Connect with The Canary Project on Facebook and follow the organization on Twitter: @Canary_Project.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jani Spede
Jani Spede Public Relations
866-923-9980
jspede@spedepr.com

Distracted driving, especially cellphone use while driving, will continue to kill innocent victims until parents start setting better examples for their children — both those who are already driving and future drivers. But unfortunately, a new study shows that parents are failing miserably.

Today, researchers from the University of Michigan presented to a pediatric health seminar new findings. Their research showed that almost 90 percent of drivers engage in at least one technology-based distraction while driving their children. And they do this, according to the study, at least once a month.

From what I’m seeing and what teens tell me, many parents are driving distracted with children in the car much more than once a month.

Very few parents are choosing to consistently turn off or ignore their cellphones and other electronic devices while they’re driving – even though their distracted driving could kill their own children!

Frankly, I’m flabbergasted. Looking at your cellphone while you’re driving is like driving with your eyes closed. You might as well let your kids play on a busy highway!

People who drive while distracted can kill themselves, their passengers and others on the roads (or even sidewalks). But parents are also contributing to future deaths. By programming their children with the idea that it’s OK to drive distracted, they are raising children who will be cause future crashes and deaths when they drive. Should we be surprised when one of these offspring later takes the life of a pedestrian while attempting to drive and send a text at the same time?

This must stop. Now.

I understand that it’s difficult to ignore a phone when someone calls or sends a text message. I understand that parents are busy and that many think they need to use driving time to catch up on phone calls (or worse yet, text and email messages). But let’s face it. In that moment, with their children in the car, they are not valuing safety. Worse, they are not even valuing life.

Please, parents — your children and the people your children might later kill are worth ignoring your phone until you park the car. You are probably only 10 minutes away from stopping, anyway — to get snacks, or drop your child off at soccer practice, a music lesson, the orthodontist or a friend’s house. Wait until then to handle texts, calls and email.

It’s hard, but we have an app that can help. Put the Canary app on your iPhone or Android. It tracks exactly when a phone is used while on the road and creates detailed reports. Give an accountability partner access to your Canary reports. Ask that person to call you to task every time the Canary report shows that you were distracted by your phone while on the road. You’ll be surprised by at least two things: how often you drive distracted and how much easier it is to avoid the temptation when you know that your accountability partner is monitoring you.

Stop putting your children at risk of death, injury or becoming distracted drivers themselves. Children didn’t ask to come into this world. We brought them here and it’s our job to protect them and to teach by example.

Yet most states already have laws on the books that punish people for things that are, well, ridiculous. For example, In Missouri, it’s illegal to drive with an un-caged bear in your car. Florida law prohibits men from wearing strapless gowns. A Texas law establishes grants for “weather modification and control.”

Introducing the United States of Ridiculaws! This nation has a patchwork of distracted driving laws that vary from state to state. Some states ban all handheld cellphone use while others have no distracted driving laws whatsoever! Where there are bans, the fines are often as minimal as $50 (Pennsylvania, for example). Yet states have odd, crazy laws that prohibit activities that are certainly not life-threatening and that describe penalties that are much more severe than those associated with many distracted driving laws.

It all just makes us ask “Why?”

Why don’t we care more about saving lives? If these silly laws passed, why are distracted driving laws that could save millions of lives not getting through? And what kind of deterrent to texting and driving is a $50 fine, anyway?

And so Canary’s #ridiculaws were born! Check us out on Twitter where we’ll post some crazy laws that make far less sense than banning distracted driving. Chime in and let us know of any #ridiculaws you know about.

And if you think it’s ridiculous that these laws exist while your state doesn’t have strong enough laws against distracted driving, join the conversation. And better yet, send a note to your state lawmakers! Ask them, “Why do we care more about this ridiculaw than saving lives?”

Without cell phones in our cars, we were so much safer than our teens are today. Spring breakers will likely also be buckled up for protection. Hopefully they won’t drink and drive. Still, their chances are higher than ever of being in a crash. Why? Because they will be driving seriously impaired.

And not just a little bit under the influence. Using phones while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk. Spring breakers who text while driving will ramp up their crash related risks by 23 times. Yet 98 percent of undergraduate college students admit to reading text messages while driving, even though they recognize the danger.

Let’s be accountable. We can be more accountable parents by using Canary to protect our teens. We can make our children accountable for safe driving while they are on the roads. The Canary app for iPhones and Android phones alerts parents right away when driving teens use their smartphones to text or talk. It also sends alerts when they exceed speed limits. Plus, the GPS-based app allows parents to find out where their teens are at any time.

Canary gives parents peace of mind during spring breaks, with real-time updates as their teens get from point A to point B safely. The app also gives parents information they can use to help teens change behaviors and to provide incentives for safer driving.

Fighting distracted driving is an around-the-clock battle, but it’s especially important during spring break highway mayhem. We just can’t rely on conversations with teens about distracted driving. We must be proactive. With Canary, we can transform habits from legally drunk-like distracted driving to being stone cold sober (no phone in hand) behind the wheel.

March 14 — COLUMBIA, S.C. — Research released today by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control demonstrates the importance of Canary, an app that helps stop distracted driving, including texting while driving. The CDC reported today that cellphone-related distracted driving is a much larger problem in the U.S. than in Europe.

Canary’s dashboard screen shows reports on all monitored smartphones.

“The difference between the American and European statistics is shocking but I’m alarmed even by the European numbers,” said Jani Spede, CEO, The Canary Project, which developed the Canary app for iPhones and Android phones. “Technology is available to help solve this problem and we must all take advantage of it, worldwide. It’s the only way to rewire our brains and end dangerous behavior.”

Any time a person uses a smartphone in any way (including talking, texting, tweeting, surfing the web, etc.) while traveling at least 12 mph, the Canary app logs that activity and reports it to an accountability partner (e.g. parent, spouse, friend or even an employer).

“Users find the resulting reports sobering, because most have no idea how often they are risking their lives and the lives of others,” Spede said. “Also, the knowledge that someone else will know about their actions helps them resist the temptation to talk or text while driving.”

The Canary app is free to download from the iTunes and Google Play app stores and free to try for seven days. Continued use requires a one-time $9.99 subscription, which enables monitoring of up to 10 smartphones. A corporate version is also available to allow employers to monitor compliance with company driving policies. More information is available at www.thecanaryproject.com.

The CDC reported that 69 percent of U.S. drivers talk on their cell phones while driving, compared to 21 percent of drivers in the United Kingdom. The study also found that 31 percent of drivers in the United States read or send text messages or emails while driving, compared to 15 percent of drivers in Spain.

ABOUT THE CANARY PROJECT

The Canary Project (www.thecanaryproject.com) is an initiative dedicated to curbing distracted driving, especially among teen drivers. Collaborating with partners who share a passion for safe driving and saving lives, The Canary Project supports existing driving safety programs and creates educational and awareness resources that will help prevent distracted driving and create safer roads. See the Canary Project blog. Connect with The Canary Project on Facebook and follow the organization on Twitter: @Canary_Project.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jani Spede
Jani Spede Public Relations
866-923-9980
jspede@spedepr.com

Companies can’t afford the risk of being without policies regarding phone use while driving company-owned vehicles. Nor can they afford policies that exist only on paper. A Georgia company with nearly 100 smartphone-carrying drivers summed up the issue for us today: “We have the policy in place and now we just need to be sure that our employees are in compliance.”

Thanks to the corporate version of our Canary app, managers can get immediate notifications of exactly how employees are using their company-provided iPhones or Android phones while driving company vehicles. This drastically reduces the liability that can arise from unenforced policies.

And we’ve made Corporate Canary extremely affordable. For less the cost of a single smartphone, corporate users can install Canary for a team of 50 employees. And larger group pricing is as low as $1.99 per user per year.

We believe it shouldn’t cost you a fortune to protect your firm and help your employees commit to safer driving.

Whether the driver is talking, texting, checking email or using social media, Canary detects that a vehicle is in motion and sends an immediate alert to designated managers. Canary also tells managers exactly where their employees are at all times, and provides a detailed dashboard showing a log of each time each driver uses the phone while on the road. Managers can download logs, assess when and where each infraction occurred and have necessary evidence for policy enforcement. Or perhaps, as another company told us, have evidence to reward employees: “We want to showcase our safest drivers and reward them.”

In a press release, Bob Hilliard, a lawyer for the woman injured in the crash with the Coca Cola truck, said, “Today’s verdict I hope sends a message to corporate America that you can’t have employees on a cell phone and endanger the motoring public.” Well said.

We’re eager to help businesses enforce their policies on cellphone use while driving – and make the roads safer for everyone. Want to get Corporate Canary for your company’s drivers? Contact us.

Are you concerned about company liability and risk management related to distracted driving? Share your thoughts with the comment form below!

But there’s a way to change people’s habits: Show them just how often they are risking lives. It can be sobering. It can rewire people to value saving lives over using their phones. That’s exactly what our Canary distracted driving prevention app does. And because we want to make Canary more accessible to more people, we’ve dropped the app’s price.

Available for iPhone and Android, Canary now has a one-time fee of $9.95 (instead of a monthly subscription). For that new price, you get real-time alerts and reports on smartphone use to help you and up to 10 friends and family members drive safer — for as long as you need the app.

Our Canary subscribers tell us amazing success stories.

“I absolutely love Canary and all that it can do!” wrote Claudia Smiley, Canary subscriber and mother of a teen driver. “Its ability to notify me when my child is driving and texting and/or using the phone while driving is wonderful. The best part is that the app also sends warnings to my child’s phone. She knows that the same notifications come to my phone as well. I am seeing fewer and fewer infractions! Now, we often receive the wonderful, ‘Congratulations, this device has no infractions!’ message. This app can be an amazing tool in keeping our teens safe.”

Examples like Claudia’s strengthen our belief that it takes more than words or promises to change behaviors. A Canary report card can provide that necessary, behavior-changing incentive — before tragedy occurs.

With tools like Canary,  together we really can curb distracted driving. Will you join us?

Feb. 22 — COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Canary Project (www.thecanaryproject.com) reduced the subscription fee for its Canary distracted driving prevention app (available for iPhones and Android phones) to $9.99 for a lifetime subscription that includes up to 10 smartphones.

The Canary app displays information about dangerous smartphone use on the road.

Canary previously cost $9.99 per month. The Canary Project converted all current subscribers to lifetime subscriptions at no extra charge.

Available free for the first seven days, Canary sends the subscriber alerts about a driver’s smartphone use on the road. Popular with parents of teen drivers, it detects texting, talking, emailing, use of social media and even speeding. Canary also tells parents when a child violates a curfew or travels into areas set as “off limits” or beyond areas set as “safe.”

“After I installed Canary on my daughter’s phone, I saw fewer and fewer infractions,” said Canary user Claudia Smiley, mother of a teen driver. “This app is an amazing tool that is keeping teens safe.”

Jani Spede, CEO of The Canary Project, said, “We must rewire people to the idea that saving lives is more valuable than sending or reading a quick text, Facebook post, tweet or email they think they can safely manage while driving. They can’t. Distracted driving is beyond an epidemic. Our new price makes it easier for more families — and even businesses that have employees on the road — to end distracted driving.”

A University of Kansas study found that 98 percent of undergraduate college students admit to reading text messages while driving, even though they recognize the danger.

A lifetime subscription to Canary is $9.99 if purchased during the app’s seven-day free trial. Afterwards, the price is $14.99. Canary also offers discounts on group subscriptions for commercial use.

More information, including links to download either version of the Canary app, is available at www.thecanaryproject.com.

ABOUT THE CANARY PROJECT

The Canary Project (www.thecanaryproject.com) is an initiative dedicated to curbing distracted driving, especially among teen drivers. Collaborating with partners who share a passion for safe driving and saving lives, The Canary Project supports existing driving safety programs and creates educational and awareness resources that will help prevent distracted driving and create safer roads. See the Canary Project blog. Connect with The Canary Project on Facebook and follow the organization on Twitter: @Canary_Project.

MEDIA CONTACT

Jani Spede
Jani Spede Public Relations
866-923-9980
jspede@spedepr.com

As I saw my family become more engaged with “screens” I made a suggestion. I’m nostalgic. I like mid-century everything: music, art, architecture, the boon of business and, yes, the quintessential family lives. So I suggested “Way Back Wednesdays” to my family — an opportunity to have a family evening reminiscent of times long gone. Think: “Leave it to Beaver.”

Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver

When I threw this idea out there, my husband said, “Are you going to dress up, wear pearls and greet me at the door with a vintage cocktail?” Hmmm … I don’t recall if June Cleaver was a mixologist! But, today is Wednesday and yes, I’m donning pearls.

So now, on Wednesday evenings, we try to have no screens. No video games. No texting or Facebooking. We are forced to find “connections” with the people present: those of us at the comfort-food adorned dinner table. We share experiences of the day while we eat, listen to big band music, play a game and then retire to the living room to read or watch an old flick. Okay, “screens” are allowed for the ebook users in the family or to watch a movie together.

You’ll be amazed and at how a “way back” day can recapture so much of what’s been lost in our society. It can help us create more dynamic, engaged families. It’s about togetherness. And I mean really together, without the distraction of family members texting or tweeting at the table or being otherwise glued to a virtual world. It’s also a great opportunity weave in some culture (bring up discussions about art, music, literature, etc.), lest we all become bots!

Happy Wednesday. Try having a “way back” evening tonight – and by all means, have a “way back” day every day when you are driving (sans phone use)!