Three area men have created a smart phone app to deter distracted driving.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Friday is about freedom.

 

And with freedom comes responsibility.

 

But when tens of millions of Americans hit the road this Fourth of July weekend, it is a fair bet that hundreds of thousands of them will not be as responsible as they should while behind the wheel of a car.

 

We've all seen examples of it. Hugh Daley certainly has.

 

"I drove back from Boston yesterday ... and I literally drove by this guy," Daley said, leaning back in his chair and putting his foot up a conference table while mimicking the act of driving with one hand on the wheel and one on a tablet. "He was watching a movie on his iPad. Going 75 miles per hour on the Pike.

 

"What it forced me to do was to go 80 to get around him, because you want that guy behind you, right?"

 

It is not the first time the Williamstown entrepreneur has seen blatant examples of distracted driving, and it is instances like it that inspired Daley and his partners to develop DriveRite, a new app for smart phones that is designed to teach responsible driving habits.

 

The other inspiration? Daley, John Albano and Ryan Maturski each has a child at or near the driving age.

 

"These kids are digital natives," Daley said during a conversation with his two partners. "They have never not had something in their hands. They don't totally understand it is a distraction."

 

The numbers show that it's a deadly distraction.

 

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's website, 3,328 Americans died in crashes caused by distracted driving in 2012 — an average of nine deaths per day nationwide. The same site reports that 78 percent of teens and young adults report having read a text message while driving; 71 percent say they have composed a message while driving.

 

In order to drive home the message that smart-phone usage is not smart while driving, Albano, Daley and Maturski came up with DriveRite, which allows parents to monitor their teens' behavior in the car and talk about what the young drivers are doing before its too late.

 

While engaged on your phone, DriveRite generates a warning message that users must "click through" before they can make a call or get to whatever app they want to bring up while driving. And if they do click through and use the app, DriveRite logs that usage on a report card that is given to the driver's parent (or whoever else is authorized to monitor the user's behavior).

 

The app does require its user to tell it when he or she is about to start a car trip, but the developers point out that most of the time parents know when a young driver is going to be behind the wheel.

 

"If my kid ever takes my keys without me knowing he is taking a trip, it will be his last trip," Daley said.

 

And if the parent knows teen was behind the wheel but no DriveRite "report card" is generated, the parent will know the app was not turned on.

 

"We call that a teaching moment," said Albano, the programmer of the group.

 

Daley said distracted driving is a different problem to legislate out of existence. Freedom-loving Americans likely would not stand for legislation to take away their cell phones, and proposals to disable phones when they travel faster than, say, 10 mph, create what the Driverite developers call "the passenger problem."

 

Enter DriveRite, which is designed not to disable phones but to enable parents to have a conversation with their kids about their driving habits.

 

"We don't want to go into this assuming all kids are criminals," Daley said. "You want to go into it with the assumption they want to do the right thing, and you have to teach them how to do it. That's what the goal is here."

 

It is a lesson everyone can learn.

 

"What's happened with me with this thing is — the only person who sees if I use my cell phone while driving is John [Albano]," Daley said "But I've used my cell phone a lot less while driving just because I know John is getting the reports.

 

"As soon as you have to think about it, as soon as you have to make a decision about it, most people will make the right decision. There are certain times when you have to make a call. I understand that."

 

In addition to providing data about phone usage in the car, the DriveRite app also uses GPS technology to keep track of where the car trip goes, but that feature can be turned off depending on the wishes of the family using the app.

 

DriveRite currently is available for free in the Apple app store, and the development team is hoping early adopters can provide feedback on how the app can be improved. Down the road, they hope to look at revenue streams for Fivelron Software, the limited liability company Albano, Daley and Maturski formed to create and market DriveRite.

 

The developers appreciate the irony of an app intended to curtail distracted driving, but they hope DriveRite will help young drivers learn the right way to use their gadgets.

 

"We drove back from Florida this winter, and we were coming up the New Jersey Turnpike," Daley said, calling up more of the anecdotal evidence he's collected. "There was a woman in a Range Rover, and she's literally driving like this [holding his phone 4 inches from his face]. That's dangerous.

 

"The best method, I think is to teach the kids to make better decisions about it, because that's a lifelong skill."

 

For more about the app, visit http://driveriteapp.com/