Austin, TX (PRWEB) April 12, 2010 — The U.S. government’s proposed ban on texting by commercial truck drivers while behind the wheel – and increasingly serious rules and consequences around it – has put transporters in a tough spot when it comes to customer service: continue texting while driving and risk disqualification and fines up to $2750 or lose valuable time by pulling over to practice safe text.
Now drivers who book jobs through uShip, the online transport marketplace, don’t have to sacrifice safety, efficiency or good customer service to get the job done. Starting today, thousands of truckers can set up their AT&T phones through the uShip Tracking Center to automatically deliver regular-interval, hands-free updates, displaying their whereabouts to customers and dramatically reducing the need for texting while driving.
uShip, through its partnership with WaveMarket, a leader in mobile location-based platforms and applications, has expanded the uShip Tracking Center to include the ability to locate all post-paid AT&T phones. Today’s enhancement also makes uShip the first certified off-deck service to use the real-world location of AT&T phones, a distinction uShip has also held with Sprint phones since June 2009. Through WaveMarket’s Veriplace® Cloud Location Platform, proprietary technology and carrier relationships, there is no need to download an application to the phone – a driver simply activates “location” through the uShip Tracking Center on his uShip account.
Drivers can also post manual location updates and Facebook-style status updates to their uShip profiles, and collectively, these tracking tools give transporters on uShip greater ability to give customers confidence and peace of mind when it comes to the status and well-being of their belongings.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) research shows that drivers who send and receive text messages take their eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 out of every 6 seconds while texting. At 55 miles per hour, this means that the driver is traveling the length of a football field, including the end zones, without looking at the road. Drivers who text while driving are more than 20 times more likely to get in an accident than non-distracted drivers. A recent study by the CTIA-The Wireless Association shows that phone users in the U.S. sent 1.5 trillion text messages in 2009.
About uShip
uShip helps relieve the stress and high cost of moving hard-to-ship items, such as cars, household goods, boats, freight, heavy equipment, pets and more. As the first and largest online shipping marketplace, uShip connects people and businesses with feedback-rated transporters. Carriers place competitive bids to win business and often fill extra space in their trucks, saving customers an average of 50 percent. During its first five years, the uShip marketplace attracted $125 million in business transactions, one million listings and 170,000 service providers. Launched in 2004, uShip operates globally with localized functionality in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, European Union and Australia.
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