As U.S. regulators step up scrutiny of the dangers of texting while driving, software makers are scrambling to develop cellphone applications that block texts or minimize the distraction of texting.Texting is wildly popular: the number of monthly text messages has increased more than tenfold in the past three years to 110.4 billion in December 2008, up from 9.8 billion in December 2005, according to the wireless industry trade organization CTIA.But texting while driving is unsafe: Not only are a driver’s eyes off the road, one or both hands are off the wheel. Texting has been implicated in the crash of a Los Angeles train in September, as well as a trolley collision in Boston in May. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have banned texting while driving, with 10 passing laws this year, the Governors Highway Safety Association said.To read this report in The Wall Street Journal in full, see:
online.wsj.com/article/SB125123906005958413.html