On July 6, the law on anti-distracted driving will come into force. The Department of Transportation recently revised the rules and regulation of the Anti-Distracted Driving Act, with a new provision for the “safe zone,” where dash cams or cellular phone placements are allowed.
The use of mobile phones for navigation applications such as Google Maps or Waze are allowed, as long as they are set before driving. The new “safe zone” cannot be more than four inches from the vehicle dashboard. Anything beyond that distance will be deemed to be in the “line of sight,” where gadgets and objects are prohibited.
In line with this development, Waze’s features can also be used in compliance to the newly revised regulation. Waze’s hands-free feature is incorporated to ease usability. Waze would like to remind drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and use voice commands to navigate and report incidents along the way. The voice command tells drivers exactly when and where to turn so they can keep their eyes on the road with full focus.
Safety is always a top priority for Waze and drivers are always encouraged to use the app as it is intended, by docking the phone and leveraging hands-free functionality during their entire route for an undistracted drive.
Waze also has dedicated safety features that complement the new regulation. For instance, Waze’s ‘Share your ETA’ feature was launched because there have been accidents caused by drivers texting while on the move to update their arrival time. This feature was introduced to prevent this.
Waze encourages the ‘Planned Drives’ feature. This feature allows users to connect through their calendar or tell Waze their intended time of arrival. Waze will then prompt the right time to leave, considering traffic. With this feature, motorists are able to plan ahead without having to speed, which increases the chance to get into an accident.
