Retired FLPD Cop Hopes 'Live2txt' App Will Curb Texting and Driving

A former Franklin Lakes Police Officer says he hopes an App he developed this year will have a big impact in reducing the number of texting-and-driving related deaths and injuries in 2014.

“I actually got the idea for it one night at dinner,” Jim Schnaidt, a borough resident and 31-year Franklin Lakes police officer who retired in May, told Patch.

“My 19-year-old daughter had her phone on the table, and the text message alert kept going off. She wasn’t answering it, so the people she wasn’t answering kept texting, it wouldn’t stop,” he explained.

“I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great if there was something that could let those people know she was busy, without them interrupting our dinner?’”

Schnaidt said he immediately applied the thought to one of the fastest growing issues he experienced as a police officer, and the ‘live2txt’ app was born.

When activated, the live2txt app blocks smartphone rings and text message alerts. Anyone who sends a message gets an automatic text message back saying the person is driving and will answer after. Once the app is deactivated, voicemails, texts, and other messages can be retrieved normally.

“Young people think it’s rude to not answer a text,” Schnaidt explained. “Most of the time, when they are texting and driving it’s because someone texted them first. This removes the temptation.”

The app also has an optional parent notification setting, so that when it is enabled, parents are alerted. Using this function, parents can know whether or not a teen activates the App before getting in the car.

“I really didn’t want it to be too intrusive, because it’s about creating the conversation about how dangerous texting and driving is, and trusting your kids, so it is on them to activate the app when they get in the car," Schnaidt said. 

But, there is the parental notification in there so parents can do their jobs.”

To develop the app, which launched in May, Schnaidt teamed up with Green Lion Digital, an IT consulting company and app developer in Wyckoff. Reps from the company say they were excited to work on this project.

“You could just tell that [Schnaidt] was coming from a good place with this idea,” Joe Giordano, a Green Lion manager, said.

“He wants to save lives. That’s why there’s no subscription fee with this app, like some of its competitors have, there’s no hooking anything up to your car. It’s just a one-time download.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a quarter of teens respond to a text message once or more every time they drive. 20 percent of teens and ten percent of parents admit that they have extended, multi-message text conversations while driving.

Schnaidt said he hopes the app he invented will help bring these statistics down in 2014.

“As a police officer, this was such a frustrating problem because it’s so difficult to enforce,” he said.

“I’m hoping this app will help people take the initiative to change those statistics themselves.”

Live2txt is available in the Google Play store for Android devices, and is $1.99.