Parents can track teen driving behavior with Holland's Crayon Interface wireless training tool

By Sharon Hanks

Parents worrying about the safety of their teenagers behind the wheel now have a new training tool that will monitor driving behavior on the road in real-time.

Holland's wireless startup Crayon Interface introduced Copilot this month, an innovative wireless device that plugs into a standard port found on all vehicles built after 1995. It tracks in real time the driver's performance on everything from the speed of driver to the location through the use of personal computers, software and mobile applications, according to Kevin Virta, Crayon Interface's vice president of business development.

Virta says the goal is to give parents a method of observing and teaching their teenager safer driving habits without always being in the passenger seat. With 12.5 million teen drivers on the road nationwide, Virta says the company hopes to reduce the number of traffic accidents which are the leading cause of teen deaths.

With Copilot, parents can instantly locate their teen drivers using an interactive map, receive alerts when they are rapidly accelerating or decelerating, set geographic boundaries, and keep track of their time behind the wheel for verification of supervised driving time required by most Graduated Drivers License (GDL) programs, including those in Michigan.

As a parent of a teenager, Virta is fully aware of the anxiety parents experience when their son or daughter hits the road as a novice driver.

"I think there are a lot of parents who go through this," he says.

Virta says there are other applications available to monitor the behavior of drivers, but they are designed for tracking drivers of large fleet trucks, he says, and not customized for novice drivers.

The Copilot device is about half the size of a deck of cards and plugs into the vehicle's computer diagnostic port. This is the same port a technician uses to diagnose a problem with the vehicle. It is normally located under the dashboard, usually near the steering column. It takes about five minutes to install.

Available only online, the unit costs $299, with a renewal annual service fee of $99 after one year. There is a 30-day risk-free trial program available.

"We're now looking for other (distribution) channels and retail opportunities for it," Virta says.


Sources: Kevin Virta, Crayon Interface's vice president of business development; Crayon Interface's website.

Sharon Hanks is innovations and jobs news editor at Rapid Growth Media. Please send story ideas and comments for the column to Sharon at [email protected]. She also is owner of The Write Words in Grand Rapids.