The concept of distracted driving comes up a lot when we think about mobility applications, particularly as applications multiply exponentially every year. The more capabilities the industry adds to mobility solutions, for productivity or just fun, the more compelling those devices get, and the more we get sucked into using them – and not always at the best times. At UCStrategies.com, and at the companies we follow within unified communications, we are constantly promoting the benefits of mobility solutions and mobile workers. Rarely do we mention the downside or dark side of UC, which has to be distracted driving, or even walking. For now, let’s focus on distracted driving.

Take, for example, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute’s July 2009 study in which they found that the danger of having a crash or near crash while texting was 23.2 times higher than non-distracted driving. That is a pretty scary statistic, but still we do it. People text while driving and they still talk on the phone while driving without headsets, although there are lots of studies done on being distracted by talking on the phone, hands-free or not too.

So why do we do it? In some cases we feel we are more productive and multi-tasking (although yet more studies claim that we aren’t more productive when multi-tasking), and for the dopamine hit. Texts, emails, chat, Twitter, all provide tiny anticipatory rewards and we get a small dopamine rush. Susan Weinschenk, a PhD who has a web site called “What Makes Them Click – Applying Psychology to Understand How People Think, Work and Relate,” has a fascinating article entitled “100 Things You Should Know About People: #8 — Dopamine Makes You Addicted To Seeking Information,” which explains how we get addicted to all of those digital missives.

I had the pleasure last week of talking with Michael Reimer, co-founder of ZoomSafer.com. Call it a tool, solution or application, ZoomSafer was designed to help ensure the safe, legal and hands-free use of mobile devices while driving. In fact, ZoomSafer was started not by someone seeing the statistics above, which speak to how compelling yet dangerous using mobile devices can be while driving, but because one of the co-founders almost added to those statistics, when he nearly killed a child because he was texting as he backed his car out of the driveway. Michael and I talked about some of the things I just mentioned, and he added one story about how a client had recently deployed 50 Blackberrys to its workers, and within a month four of those workers got in accidents while using them, so they turned to ZoomSafer for help.

ZoomSafer has patented a solution that provides flexible policy management for the use of mobile devices while driving. It consists of a web application that allows a business or individual to customize their own set of safe driving policies, and track and administer them, a client application to download onto a users’ mobile device to enforce the policies, and a set of free voice services to allow users to text, call or email, hands-free while driving.

Knowing that it’s not practical to go after banning the use of mobile devices, ZoomSafer set off to deliver a solution that would help with mobile phone use, and developed a theme of safe, legal and productive. The company believes that it has a unique opportunity of providing policy management, along with voice productivity tools so that people can still get things done, but in a safe and effective manner while driving.

The solution works by using the GPS in the phone to determine if the person is on the go or not, and then applying policies to how the phone can be used. As part of policy management, while driving all incoming calls are routed to a headset and not the phone. The solution suppresses inbound texts and emails, and has keyboard and screen lock capability. The solution has optional features, such as inbound call management, so that a user or business can manage who can call them while they are mobile, outbound voice-activated dialing, auto-replies for text, phone, and email that announce to the sender that the person is driving and can’t be disturbed, and other safety features. ZoomSafer also offers Voice Mate, which provides a user with audible notification of priority incoming emails and texts, with one-touch access to a voice portal so that the user can listen, reply, and create emails and texts using their voice.

ZoomSafer is sold in three different packages either with a monthly charge or onetime fee. The company is currently negotiating with several insurance companies to offer discounts to families that use it with their teens (good news) too.

ZoomSafer is an interesting solution to a big problem that is only getting bigger. They provide a compelling proposition because they address not just the applications that can make driving safer, such as using speech-to-text to create emails and such, such as a Vlingo or Bluetooth provides, or the policy management around when applications can be used, such as a TxtBlocker would provide, but both. This is a well thought out product solving an interesting problem.