The airplane mode can be activated automatically if the mobile phone is used while driving

We know that the use of mobile phones is behind a huge number of accidents that, every year, cause injuries and deaths in road traffic collisions. The Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) has quantified the impact of driving while using electronic devices such as smartphones, with frightening figures.

In fact, the mobile phone has been identified as one of the leading causes of distraction while driving. Something that could soon be a thing of the past.

Activate airplane mode before driving, or the phone will do it for you

A team at the School of Engineering and Science of the Tecnológico de Monterrey is already working on a tool that can detect the use of a smartphone while its user is driving.

Through artificial intelligence, the team has managed to establish patterns that would tell the device that it is being transported in a vehicle.

Thanks to the various sensors that smartphones have in order to function and offer services such as GPS, altitude, speed and acceleration sensors, together with the nature of these phones, which have screens that respond to their users’ touch, it can be determined that a person is typing or using the device while on the move.

This tool could come into action once phone use while driving is detected, so that the phone would be deactivated by switching to airplane mode.

In this way, the team led by Professor Pedro Ponce claims that its algorithm already works, has been tested and patented in the United States, and they are now waiting for mobile phone manufacturers to show interest in this tool, which could save a large number of lives every year across the planet.

You may be interested in:

• The Directorate-General for Traffic warns: the mobile phone is the great enemy of road safety
• Using a mobile phone is one of the most dangerous distractions at the wheel
• Mobile phone use soars, according to the DGT