In many ways, the most fascinating thing about a new Android app that helps you track how fast your teen is driving called Speedbump is not the app itself, but who designed it.
Five years ago, Lunenburg, MA, high school student Jon Fischer was learning to drive. In driver's ed class, Jon "saw a lot of news in my area about teens being injured or killed in high speed crashes on secondary roads, and decided to base my science fair project on driving safety technology."
Fischer's 2006 Massachusetts State Science Fair project grew into Speedbump, a sophisticated app/software combination allowing you parents to set and monitor safe driving speeds for your child.
Local roads are dangerous
Speedbump is unlike the teen driving monitoring systems I wrote about a few months ago in one important way. Fischer found some FARS (Fatal Accident Reporting System) data from the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration and found most fatal auto accidents involving teens happened not on smooth, straight highways, but on curvy, bumpy, traffic-light strewn secondary and local roads.
It turns out doing a seemingly innocent 50 in a 40 MPH zone is far more potentially fatal than cranking it to 80 on a 55 MPH freeway, which is what most safe driving apps are designed to curb.
So, Speedbump lets parents set separate speed limits on a variety of types of roads – highways, secondary roads and local roads. If the set speed is exceeded, or if the phone is being used while moving, you are advised by text message or email. You can even program the app to send you periodic "speed samples" to track your teen.
How it works
For a variety of reasons, Speedbump isn't yet available on the Android Market. Instead, you go to the Speedbump Web site, and enter the phone number of the phone you want the app loaded on. (Unfortunately, Speedbump isn't available for AT&T phones, either; the Web site says this'll be fixed "Fall 2010," but obviously that's wrong.)
Once you create an account, the phone you're setting up receives a text message with a link to download the app. Once installed, you touch the "Activate Application" and the phone now can monitor driving speed via GPS.
The app itself is nothing – it's a single-screen and works completely in the background, as long as the phone is on. If your teen tries to disable or remove the app, turns off the GPS or turns off the phone, the app appraises you via text or email.
At your end, you go to Speedbump's monitoring Web site to set the varying speed limits and messaging options, and track your teen's transit on a map.
You can check out how Speedbump works by perusing its user manual here.
For the time being, the first 60 days are free, but you leave a credit card number. After 60 days, the service (remember, you get texts and emails generated by the app) runs $9.99 a month.
Meanwhile Jon is a senior at Champlain College in Burlington, VT, due to graduate next month, and helps run the company with his father, Richard.