Our phones connect us to the world via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, GroupMe (let’s stop naming now) and others.  However, there is a time and a place for everything and while you are travelling down the roads (no matter the speed) is NOT the place.  After witnessing someone pulling into my work parking lot with steering wheel in one hand and iPad in the other — this needs to be addressed.

There are a multitude of apps and technologies available that can reduce the amount of times you touch your phone while driving from a lot to almost nil (almost nil implies the fact the no one is perfect and sometimes you just grab the thing).

For the iOS side, unfortunately Apple does not give developers access to the notifications so all notifications cannot be read through your cars speakers when connected via bluetooth; however, controlling music is seamless.  Rolling over to Android, you can essentially listen to any notification that you receive, regardless of app, over your bluetooth system.  You want your text messages read, there are apps for that like Agent (also includes other capabilities besides wonderful driving agents) and OutLoud, just to name a few.  With this much power in your hands, why put yourself in so much danger while on the roads?

First, let’s take a look at Agent, available in the Play Store here:

Here we are highlighting the drive agent (check out the others on your own, they are great too).  Drive agent will automatically connect to a bluetooth connection that you have saved, here you will specify your car, and will allow you to: listen to text messages and even send out automatic responses to text messages and calls.  A beta feature is that you can even reply to messages.  What more could one ask for?

Next, let’s take a look at OutLoud (found in the Play Store here), which literally can play any and every notification (not just SMS focused) that you receive over your speakers, although this isn’t for everyone it can still be handy and perhaps using both of these apps together would be a perfect use case?

Bottom line:  You do NOT have to use your device and drive.  Notifications can wait or even be read to you.  Stop taking risks and choose a solution right for you!