An App to Prevent Distracted Driving - Central Coast News KION/KCBA

A new cell phone app is supposed to help prevent drivers from texting while driving.

The app will deny people access to text messages and e-mail while they are moving faster than fifteen-miles-per-hour.

The development comes on the heels of a daunting Department of Transportation report.

It showed nearly 55-hundred people were killed and more than 48-thousand others injured in 2009 because of distractions behind the wheel.

Deborah Hersman from the National Transportation Board says, "People don't recognize just how long they're being diverted away from the task at hand which is driving. So we know the people on average, when they're texting behind the wheel are looking down and not paying attention to the road for about the length of a football field. They're traveling great distances while they're not looking at what's going on in front of them."

The app download is free and the account costs roughly nine dollars a month.