This PSA and giveaway is sponsored by Sprint.

When Mike and I are on long drives, we play, “Count the cell phones.” The passenger calls out every time we pass a car with driver looking at a mobile phone. Whoever is driving our car has two roles in this game: to guess how long it will take until we find one hundred distracted drivers, and to give those cars a wide berth. We usually find our hundred drivers in about ten to fifteen minutes, and then we stop playing because we’re so terrified.

The problem is that everyone thinks someone else is the problem. Literally. Ninety-nine percent of all Americans consider themselves safe drivers. That sounds like wishful thinking to me – none of us mean to be unsafe on the road, but there is more potential to be distracted than ever before. I know for me, my cell phone is a terrible temptation. Since I often use my phone as my navigator, it’s out on my console and when a text message pings on the screen, it’s almost impossible to resist glancing down at it. I’ve often wished there was a way to turn off my incoming text messages to remove the temptation all together…and it turns out, there is.

The Sprint M2M Network hosts several solutions to keep drivers safer, and one of them is disabling text messages through the use of an OBD2 device. Once the OBD2 is plugged into your car it can do other cool things like vehicle tracking and maintenance alerts, but to me the ability to remove any temptation to send or read text messages is the true selling point – and the kicker is that your insurance company likely already offers it. All you have to do is call them up and ask for one.

This technology is being heavily directed towards parents of teen drivers, and rightfully so: more teenagers die from texting and driving than drunk driving. That’s staggering. But I think that OBD2 devices can benefit everyone on the road. Nothing is more important than arriving safely. Remember when cell phones were just phones? Let’s go back to that when we’re behind the wheel.

Find out more about these amazing devices here.

Sprint wants to give one of my readers a 32GB Black & Slate iPad Mini with Wi-Fi + Cellular for Sprint! Listed below are a few ways to enter to win. I want to win, you lucky, lucky people.

If you have any questions, please let me know. Good luck!

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