New Safe-Driving App Forces Bad Teen Drivers to Endure Terrible Music

Never made it as a wise man ...'

August 23, 2017 9:00 am

Look, teenagers will always be terrible drivers.

Anything that can help them on the road is a good thing. So the new Toyota Safe & Sound app arrives with a solid premise: No cell phone distractions when your kid is navigating the road.

The app starts by allowing parents to “give” permission for their kid to drive via virtual car keys. Then, it automatically activates a “Do not disturb” mode on the teen driver’s smartphone while the car is in motion.

But here’s the kicker: It also punishes the driver if he/she picks up the phone or goes over the speed limit (as determined by Google Maps API technology) by replacing their Spotify playlist with one from their parents.

Note: You’ll need to have an Android phones and a Spotify Premium account for this to work. And a suggestion to parents: fill that playlist with Nickelback’s discography. If you really wanna have fun, just make it a playlist of Nickelback’s 2001 hit “How You Remind Me.” 

The app itself is a good idea, and a necessary one. In a new study by Everquote, 55 percent of teens said cell phones were their biggest driving distraction. The real problem? In the same study, a whopping 24 percent of parents said they texted or called their teenager knowing he or she was driving (and almost half the teens surveyed said their parents called during their road adventures.)

Another case of a parental “listen to what I say, but don’t do as I do.”

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