Mobile Phone ‘Simplicity’ Proposed As Next Step For Safety By NHTSA

America’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has suggested mobile phone companies alter their products to offer nothing but basic services while the user is driving.

As part of a set of voluntary guidelines, the NHTSA has called for phones to switch to a ‘driving mode’ while the vehicle is in use, dulling the user interface in a ‘back to the 90s’ style of simplified communication.

The Administration believes better connectivity between phones and car infotainment systems would allow users to make full use of mapping, text-to-speech, hands-free calling and other services while effectively ‘blocking’ the phone’s other functions. 

Combined, the NHTSA hopes drivers would then be forced to spend less time looking at their phones or infotainment screens and more time focusing on the job at hand.

"As millions of Americans take to the roads, far too many are put at risk by drivers who are distracted by their cellphones," US Transportation Secretary, Anthony Foxx, said.

"These common-sense guidelines, grounded in the best research available, will help designers of mobile devices build products that cut down on distraction on the road."

This is the second phase in the NHTSA’s plan to cut down on driver distraction caused by mobile phones, with the first being a call to carmakers for better infotainment systems to be fitted as standard equipment to reduce the time spent with ‘eyes off the road’.

NHTSA