WWSB ABC 7:
Cell phone use while driving caused over 3,000 deaths and 600,000 accidents last year. Numbers like those led a local father and son to team up and create a solution to what many see as a growing problem.
Several years ago, Ronald Pothul came up with the idea after he retired. “When I retired from Verizon, I saw the epidemic that was evolving in front of us,” he says.
Pothul said the epidemic is the ever-growing problem of distracted driving. It really hit home when his relative got into an accident texting while driving. “I was strongly motivated at that point in time to come up with, and think outside the box, a unit that could be very simple to use,” says Pothul.
He calls the solution Dock-n-Lock. “I devised a unit that was actually hooked up very simply to the ignition,” says Pothul.
What it does is requires the driver to place their phone into a locker component, enabling the vehicle to start and keeping the device “locked up” until they pull over or reach a destination. “Only after they shut the vehicle off does the locker component then open and the individual can retrieve their phone and make phone calls or text,” says Pothul.