If Whitney Anderson has her way, there will come a time when even if you wanted to use a hand-held smartphone while behind the wheel, you won't be able to.
The Grade 10 student at Westside Academy has been working on a software application that automatically shuts down a device once you're going over 20 kilometres per hour.
"It puts a safe screen on it so that the driver can't access the phone," Anderson said Friday. "It still automatically answers your phone calls on speaker phone, reads aloud your text messages."
It also sends a message to friends and family warning them that the screen saver is on, in case they want to contact the driver. When the vehicle stops, the screen is removed.
The application is still in the development stage but it has already caught some attention.
When she entered the project in the Central Interior Science Exhibition, it was judged good enough to be advanced to the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Windsor, Ont. where Anderson earned an application development award from Blackberry.
"I did some research and I figured out that a lot of people are dying because of this in epidemic proportions," she said.
She credited her father as the reason for her software development skills.
"He's really good with computers and he taught me," Anderson said. "If anybody has a computer problem, they just say 'Whitney, help me."
So far the program consists of an adaptation of Tasker, an app that can be used to automate a phone's abilities. Anderson is working to take it to the next level and write her own programming language for the app.
Anderson's work also caught the attention of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. The public auto insurer's road safety coordinator, Diana Pozer, presented her with a certificate to acknowledge her achievement during an assembly at the school on Friday.
Pozer also presented a certificate to Westside Academy Grade 7 student Faith Johnson, who also focussed on distracted driving for her science fair project. Specifically, Johnson tested fellow students' reaction times by dropping a ruler and seeing how quickly they could catch it.
"If they were texting and I dropped it, their reaction time was really down and some people didn't even catch it," Johnson said. "And that would mean that they would probably crash or they would have hit someone."
Johnson's project was named the best automotive-related project and she earned a silver medal at the Central Interior Science Exhibition.
Westside students also got an idea just how difficult driving and texting can be when they negotiated a walker equipped with a steering wheel through an obstacle course while trying to work a smartphone.
And prior to that, they were given a presentation on the penalties drivers can get if they're caught using hand-held devices while on the move.
As of last Monday, the penalty is three points in addition to a $167 fine - the same penalty that was already in place for drivers caught texting or e-mailing - and it applies to using a phone, operating a hand-held audio player or programming a GPS.
Drivers who accrue more than three points must pay an ICBC driver penalty point premium that starts at $175 and will escalate if they receive more points.
A driver who receives two distracted driving tickets in a year would pay $634, which is the cost of two fines and a $300 penalty for six points.
