Likely, you’ve seen AT&T’s “It Can Wait” texting and driving campaign. Today, working with MRY, AT&T has relaunched its “It Can Wait” website and is giving heavy emphasis to #X, the symbol it hopes becomes the standard for telling people you are driving and can’t text right now.
The site houses a #X explanatory video, an invitation to make a pledge not to text and drive which can be shared to Twitter and Facebook (over 5 million have done so), tips and tools in the form of an Android app and iOS instruction on how to easily use #X and a gallery of social media shares related to the campaign.
The intent, of course, is to get people to use #X before they drive. That’s great as long as it’s used on social media and friends check those social profiles or it’s sent to a friend who has just texted you before you drive. But what if a friend texts you while you are driving?
There are instructions on the site to create a shortcut using #X on iOS but one still has to text those two symbols for the message to be sent. The Android app is a better solution. Once installed, it silences incoming alerts, turns off text messaging and directs incoming calls to voicemail. All great but even better would be an auto-reply feature that sent an “I’m driving” message to anyone who sent a text.
All in all, it’s valiant effort even though a 2013 national survey of drivers age 16 years and older found that about one-quarter of drivers reported sending a text message or email while driving at least once in the past 30 days, and about three-quarters said they had read a text or email. But we have to start somewhere, don’t we?
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