In December 2016, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration published a new proposal as Phase 2 of its Driver Distraction Guidelines. The guidelines, which were aimed at cellphone manufacturers, suggested that phones be equipped with a driver mode to stop car and truck drivers from using them while they are traveling on roads in Mississippi and around the country.<\/p>\n
The guidelines include a recommendation that phones gain the ability to be paired with vehicles. A paired device could then automatically have its screen turned off. Although emergency services would still be accessible, the screen lockdown might discourage drivers from looking at their devices and putting everyone around them at risk. In cases where circumstances might prevent phones from being paired with vehicles, drivers would need to turn on driver mode manually until technology progresses to the point where phones could determine when to activate driver mode automatically.<\/p>\n
Driver mode would block motorists from doing things like reading text messages, scrolling through content and going online to view websites. It would also stop them from entering text by hand. Although they could still use map functions, image and video display would be barred in all other circumstances.<\/p>\n