May 8, 2008.
Dave Sueper was driving to a business meeting with Scott Tibbitts, a chemical engineer who made motors for NASA, when a distracted teenager ran a red light, hitting Sueper's car and killing him.
Tibbitts, a father of two, made it his mission to prevent other deaths, such as Sueper's, from occurring again.
Always in his mind was the thought that "there has got to be something that will fix this technically and this feeling - it just wouldn't let go," Tibbitts told Katie Couric on Yahoo News.
It was right around the time Tibbitts had sold his space company, Starsys Research Corp., so he committed himself to putting an end to texting while driving.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, distracted driving includes:
- Texting
- Using a cell phone or smartphone
- Eating and drinking
- Talking to passengers
- Grooming
- Reading, including maps
- Using a navigation system
- Watching a video
Distracted driving causes 1.6 million auto crashes per year, and texting while driving is now the number one cause of car-related deaths among teens (replacing drinking and driving), according to Yahoo. Some phone apps have been created that won't allow texting if the GPS senses the phone traveling at a rate higher than 10 miles per hour, but users can override the app (since the app can't tell if you are driving the car yourself or riding in a cab).
Enter Tibbitts' new company, Katasi, and a device called Groove.
Groove is a small device that plugs into a port under the steering wheel (most cars made after 1996 have this port, according to Yahoo). Groove connects the car to the internet and each driver of the vehicle needs to register. After that, you drive. Within seconds, Groove determines who is driving and communicates with the driver's cell phone carrier. The carrier then blocks distractions (like texts) from reaching the phone.
When the driver turns the car off, Groove tells the carrier and all the messages held behind the cyber-dam return.
"Our goal is to have every carrier on board with Groove, providing the capability to limit distractions before they get to the phone when a subscriber is driving," Tibbitts told Yahoo.
"It was so reassuring to me that this was going to save so many lives," Sueper's widow, Diane Misgen, told Couric. "And I think for my kids, it's also heartwarming to know that someone else who had nothing to do with our family took on that challenge in honor of their dad."
