Surprising statistics continue to bring attention to distracted driving and nearly 3 out of 4 Canadian drivers admit to driving distracted. According to the government of Ontario’s distracted driving statistics, one person is injured in a distracted driving collision every half hour. They also found that a driver using a phone is four times more likely to crash than a driver focusing on the road. We are all aware by now, it is illegal to use a handheld electronic or communication device while driving. The penalties are extremely severe. If you are caught you will face consequences not only from law enforcement, but from your insurance company as well. The purpose of this article is to present to you a simple “Do Not Disturb” phone feature to help keep you focused on the road while driving.
How to put your phone on Do Not Disturb and keep your focus off your device while driving.
For iPhone users:
Apple has equipped all iPhones with a feature called “Do not disturb while driving”. It can be activated by the following steps.
1) Open the settings app
2) Tap Do Not Disturb
3) Scroll down to “Do not disturb while driving”
4) Tap activate and choose your preferred Preferences.
If you would like to add the do not disturb feature to your control center (The bottom menu when you swipe up from the bottom of your screen on your iPhone) you can use the following steps.
1) Open the settings app
2) Choose control center
3) Select customize controls
4) Add do not disturb while driving (Has the car icon)
5) If you are a passenger and this feature is automatically enabled, simply tap the notification at the top of the screen and select the option “I’m not driving”.
6) In the do not disturb screen, you can customize your reply options that the feature has, as well as the automated message option and the message it sends.
7) For this feature, if your phone is connected to a Bluetooth hands free system, calls will not be blocked, but texts and other notifications will be. However, if you are not connected to a Bluetooth system, the calls will be blocked.
For Android users:
1) Go to Settings > Sound & notification > Do not disturb and tap Automatic rules. If you have a Samsung Galaxy phone, then it’s Settings > Sounds and vibration > Do not disturb > Enable as scheduled.
2) Tap on Add rule, and decide whether you want it to be triggered by a specific time, or by an event.
3) Pick a name for the rule and then specify the triggers.
4) For time-based rules, you can choose days of the week, and specify start and end times. This means you can set one bedtime rule for during the week and another for the weekend.
5) For event-based rules, you’ll need to specify a calendar to link up and then you can have Do Not Disturb turn on automatically when you have an event, like a meeting. You can even specify that it only works for meetings you’ve replied Yes to. Note: Unfortunately, event-based rules are not offered on Samsung Galaxy phones.
Having problems activating “Do Not Disturb”? Try these helpful links:
Third party apps:
Driving Detective (Available on Android)
- The driving detective app takes measurements of your current speed and automatically activates when you start driving
- One potential issue with this app however, is it may assume you are driving while taking public transit. This is easily fixable as you can toggle It on and off by tapping the switch in the top right corner.
- The app lets you choose if you’d like to block notifications entirely or let some priority alerts through e.g. Reminders, events, alarms or messages from specifically chosen contacts.
- you can specify if you would like the app to work on weekdays or weekends.