When an earthquake struck the east coast of the US, recently, people were receiving tweets about it and then feeling the earthquake's shockwaves moments later. What a world we live in where news can travel that quickly. And while it's true that some news ends up being fake (Justin Timberlake is still alive and the Balloon Boy never was in the balloon) technology can be harnessed positively to make our lives better. Drivers have great tools available to them to help them arrive at their destinations on time and safely.
In this article, I’m going to give you a few tools you can use to help you drive better:
Twitter: Twitter is a great tool that provides real time information. Sometimes it's not so helpful (I don't care what kind of sandwich you're eating) but sometimes it can be helpful. Use Twitter's search function (http://search.twitter.com) to help you plan your route. Search for the name of your city or town plus the word "traffic". For example, search "Vancouver Traffic" or the hashtag #vancouvertraffic if you live in Vancouver. (Of course, substitute your own city or town). This can alert you in real time to accidents, construction, lane closures, and more, without having to wait for the traffic report on the radio.
Apps to read your emails: If you can't wait until you get home to read your emails, tweets, Facebook statuses, and whatnot, many mobile devices have apps that will read these for you while you drive. It's much easier and safer to have them read to you than to read them yourself (and, in some jurisdictions, it's illegal to use your phone while driving). Each mobile device is different so I'm not naming any specific apps here, but if you search your app store on your mobile device, you should find an app that can read your emails for you.
Waze: Here's an interesting app that has some interesting potential. It's called "social GPS" and it provides turn-by-turn GPS functionality for your iPhone or Android device. So, how is it different than regular GPS? As a "social GPS", it builds off of information from other users so it can respond in real time to road conditions. If only a few people use it, it's frankly not going to be that helpful (because there is less input for the "real time" component). But if many people use it, every additional piece of information can help it to become a useful tool to everyone.
Car Accident Report: There's an app for everything, and it turns out that there's a app for when you are in a collision. With Car Accident Report (C.A.R., available on iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/c.a.r.-car-accident-report/id320377277?mt=8) you get an iPhone tool that can record a whole bunch of really helpful information when you get into a collision. It will pull in GPS information and Google Maps to help you report what happened, and there is a place to collect driver and witness information.
There isn't an app yet for when you need a repair after a collision, but when you bring your car to Boyd Autobody & Glass, we can repair it for you quickly and easily to get you back on the road.
