OTTER now offering Text and Drive Solution app for free
Smartphone users can now download for free an app that can help prevent them, or their loved ones, from texting and driving.
Seattle-based company OTTER announced last week it is now offering its full-featured OTTER app to all Android smartphone users at no cost. The One Touch Text Response app previously sold for a one-time price of $3.99, but the company has eliminated the fee to help increase safety on America’s roadways.
“This is our fully functional, GPS based, texting management software in English, Spanish or French – nothing is held back,” OTTER Founder and CEO Erik Wood said in a release. “No recurring fees, no need to upgrade later to a pay version. We want to get this software in as many driver’s hands as quickly as possible.”
The OTTER software was developed in 2009 to, in part, reduce the occurrences of texting-related accidents, and Mr. Wood founded the company after his daugther was nearly struck by an allegedly texting driver.
The app allows its users to automatically reply to text messages when their full attention is needed elsewhere, such as in the workplace or behind the wheel of a vehicle. Automated replies can be sent for a predetermined amount of time or even while the phone’s GPS feature detects its user is in a moving vehicle.
Mr. Wood hopes the now-free app can help reduce the nearly 5,500 texting-and-driving-related fatalities that occur each year in the United States.
“Carriers, phone makers and all other entities that help facilitate texting and driving will eventually move to include our innovations in the smartphone box. We just want that day to be today,” Mr. Wood stated.
For more information, visit otterapp.com.
