Sprint Recognizes National Distracted Driving Awareness Month as Nearly All U.S. Drivers View Texting While Driving as a Serious Threat

Joins Kansas City Royals in hosting “Focus on Driving Night” at Kauffman Stadium on April 18 and supports the Do Something Thumb Wars Campaign for a fourth year

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), April 16, 2014 – As the country recognizes National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, Sprint (NYSE:S, news, filings) is reminding wireless consumers to focus on driving while behind the wheel, to not text or email while driving, and to encourage others to promote driver safety in their local communities.

According to a 2013 study on traffic safety culture by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, nearly all drivers view texting or emailing while driving as a very serious threat to their own personal safety and consider it completely unacceptable.ⁱ

Given this growing consumer awareness, Sprint is continuing its education efforts on the dangers of texting while driving by sponsoring the Do Something Thumb Wars campaign for a fourth year. Starting in May 2014, Sprint’s partnership with Do Something, will include a celebrity public service announcement, the distribution of 80,000 pairs of thumb socks to teen students who can win a $10,000 college scholarship, and spreading information about distracted driving awareness nationwide to teens and adults.

Sprint is also partnering with the Kansas City Royals on Friday, April 18 at Kauffman Stadium for a Focus on Driving Night. Game attendees will have the opportunity to sign the Sprint distracted driving consumer pledge and will receive a Sprint Focus on Driving mobile phone cover as a reminder of their commitment.

In addition to these efforts, Sprint provides a number of tools for wireless customers and the business community to utilize for driver safety and distracted driving prevention, including:

• Sprint Drive First: A free wireless application that helps drivers stay focused on the road by locking their smartphone when motion is detected. Sprint Drive First automatically detects movement above 10 miles per hour and locks the mobile phone. Incoming calls are directed to voicemail and incoming texts receive a standardized response. Sprint Drive First is available on Sprint CDMA Android™-powered smartphones for free in Google Play.
• Sprint Connected Solutions for Fleet Management: Sprint offers businesses with fleets a choice of industry-leading fleet-management solutions that help fleet managers to identify and reduce risky driving behaviors including harsh braking, starts, stops, speeding and swerving while enabling them to track and monitor vehicle locations, optimize driver dispatch and routing, and receive maintenance reminders and alerts. Some solutions help drivers self-coach by providing an in-vehicle alert when they violate a company driving policy (speeding, etc).
• Sprint Velocity: This solution helps automakers around the world develop and market totally customized connected services for their cars and passenger trucks. Connected car services enabled by Sprint Velocity can include infotainment features such as music, news, weather and sports, Wi-Fi connections for mobile devices, security, navigation, emergency services and engine diagnostics.
• DriveCam: Powered by Lytx Programs, DriveCam captures video and audio inside and outside of the vehicle when triggered by a risky driving event that could lead to a collision. The device provides real?time feedback to the driver, and video events are uploaded via the wireless network enabled by Sprint to Lytx’s review center where they are analyzed, scored and posted to the company’s cloud-based platform for driver coaching and improvement.
• Sprint Solutions for Usage-Based Insurance (UBI): This service gives insurance carriers the ability to offer customers personalized discounts based on their driving habits. The vehicle is fitted with a small device that easily plugs into the diagnostic port. It captures vehicle information and driver behavior data which is transmitted over the Sprint wireless network. A cloud-based system analyzes the data with driver scoring software that enables insurance carriers to improve driver risk assessments and provide insurers and their policyholders with accurate and reliable data analytics.

More information on Sprint’s distracted driving efforts can be found at sprint.com/drive.

About Sprint

Sprint (NYSE: S) offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint served more than 55 million customers at the end of 2013 and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; leading prepaid brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. The American Customer Satisfaction Index rated Sprint as the most improved company in customer satisfaction, across all 47 industries, during the last five years. Sprint has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) North America in 2011, 2012 and 2013. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.

ⁱ AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 2013 Traffic Safety Culture Index Full Report. January 2014, from https://www.aaafoundation.org/2013-traffic-safety-culture-index.

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