Local businesses offering discounts for responsible drivers

SAFE 2 SAVE is a free app available for iPhones and Androids that began in Bryan and College Station in October and now has 13,926 local users. The purpose of this free app is to help encourage people in a positive way to drive safe by rewarding them with incredible deals at reputable local businesses.

By driving safe and limiting distractions that the phone provides, you can save money and lives. The goal is to truly change behavior so that drivers are no longer holding their phones in their hands or their laps.

Rather, they are purposely pulling up the SAFE 2 SAVE app before they drive and decide to “lock” their phone in a sense to choose safety over productivity as people are 23 times more likely to be in a car

crash when they text and drive. For every minute they drive with any screen of SAFE 2 SAVE pulled up, they earn points which then can be redeemed for a variety of amazing rewards.

Also, all the participating businesses have really benefited from more traffic and the visibility in the community that they are making a difference here locally.

A driver will simply pull up the SAFE 2 SAVE app and it is a good idea to put the phone on silence as well.

Once they start driving, the GPS unit will know they are going 15mph or more and then the app will know to start adding points to their account. Users can receive calls and make calls but alerts will come

up if they try to text, email, play a game or search for music. Before a driver begins driving, they can plug in their music play list and pull up their map within the app and would still be able to earn points.

Voice messaging and Bluetooth can also work at all times to encourage hands free driving. Currently, a driver will earn 2 points for each minute of safe driving.

Once the driver has accrued points, they will have a list of businesses that take SAFE 2 SAVE points. On this list, businesses will have eye-catching pictures, a tagline, their website, hours, a map to their

location and their deals they are offering.

Users will be often scrolling down all the choices as they decide where to redeem their points, which helps your business stay top of mind.

We have heard from hundreds of people especially between the ages of 18-40 that have admitted they were bad about texting and driving but now have a new system in place. Now, there is more awareness and a system in place to hold them accountable as well as a motivation to earn a free meal at places like Veritas, Mad Taco and Café Eccell.

We want to hear from all users, both positive and negative feedback as that is how we grow and learn so please email info@safe2save.org about anything.

Currently this app works anywhere in the United States and can be used for accountability but we chose only Bryan, College Station and Madisonville to launch local rewards during this beginning phase.

There is a patent pending and plans in place to expand to other cities in Texas.

Marci Corry is a local College Station resident, has 2 young children and mentors college students and her husband is a campus pastor at Grace Bible Southwood. She wanted to make a difference and after

studying how to change habits, she wanted to take a positive approach and come up with an app that was both exciting to use but also reminded people that they needed to change habits.

THE TEXT CAN WAIT is the slogan because she also used to struggle with wanting to redeem every minute and was guilty of looking down at her phone too often. She now has an incredible team of developers, interns called SAFE 2 SAVE Ambassadors and 5 local advisers that are helping make this company a success so far.