Driving and fiddling with your mobile phone does not mix. Or does it?

Assistant Professor Aschraf Khalil at Al Ain Campus, Abu Dhabi University has developed a mobile application that will help you drive safer – as long as you don’t play with it while driving.

“The idea is to give people feedback about their risk on the motorway and get them to enhance their driving. With all the crazy driving you see and all the phone usage and technology people are fond of, you need something like that”, said professor Khalil to TheNational.

The Driver Riskometer is the perfect back seat driver. It launches automatically when you start driving. It uses GPS to measure kilometres and minutes travelled, percentage of time spent in different speed ranges as well as top and average speed. In the end of the journey, your phone will calculate how safe you have been driving. It also takes into account time spent on the phone and how many calls you made and time spent tapping phone keys.

When you have parked your car, you will get a grade. 1 is very safe and 7 very risky.

“Our view on it is using a mobile phone while you are driving is exceptionally dangerous”, said professor Khalil.

The software is made for a GPS-enabled Nokia phones, and took four months to develop. If the outcome will show that it motivates people to drive safer, it will be introduced into the market. The team will also create applications for other phones, such as iPhones.