Reporting driving violations? There’s an app for that
Philip Inghelbrecht and other entrepreneurs at the intersection of traffic and technology are giving a new meaning to the phrase “mobile app.”
At 6 p.m. Monday, Inghelbrecht is starting the engine of a free iPhone app called DriveMeCrazy, with which drivers can rat out their fellow motorists’ bad driving. Drivers can speak the license plate of the offending vehicle into their iPhones.
Inghelbrecht said it’s an effort to use “crowdsourcing” to bring greater civility and safety to the nation’s roads. And he wanted to broadcast a special alert to the traffic capital of the United State: Los Angeles.
“The AAA Foundation says that aggressive driving behavior is the cause of more than half of the 6 million automobile crashes that occur in the U.S. every year. We believe that bad driving comes from a feeling of motorist anonymity,” Inghelbrecht said in an e-mail. “Currently drivers believe only police officers can report them. As a result, there is inadequate ‘peer pressure’ to avoid aggressive or dangerous driving.”