At any given moment on U.S. roads, 10 percent of young drivers are working their cell phones, according to highway safety research.

University of Utah researchers have developed a possible solution to this public safety menace: a key attachment that disables a cell phone while the ignition is on.

The idea was the brainchild of Salt Lake City native Wally Curry, a Kansas doctor who studied at the U. as an undergraduate and medical resident. A urologist, Curry fields endless calls from the office.

"I'm constantly day or night taking calls, when I'm driving, when I'm not driving. One day I was in my car and I observed a young teenage girl texting while driving. She was looking down," said Curry, himself the father of two girls approaching driving age. "This is crazy, but at the same point it's what I'm doing. Something has to be done to stop it."

The U. and other institutions have provided ample evidence that cell-phone use impairs driving. And yet the phenomenon persists, particularly among the young, already the worst drivers on the road. And the problem is getting worse, says the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

"The research shows that drivers using cell phones are four times more likely to get into a crash in which the driver is injured," IIHS spokesman Russ Rader said. "It doesn't appear to matter whether the driver is using a hand-held or hands-free phone. A number of states have passed laws banning hand-held cell-phone use or phone use by teen drivers, but it's not clear whether those laws are having an effect on behavior."

Under Utah's "careless driving" law, using a hand-held phone is a traffic violation, but only in concert with a moving violation other than speeding.

Drivers ages 16 to 24 used phones while driving 10 percent of the time in 2005, up from 5 percent in 2002, according to a literature review by Curry's co-inventor, Xuesong Zhou. The 2005 figure is 6 percent for the general population.

Curry's initial idea was to use Global Position System technology to disable the phone while it was in motion. But such a system wouldn't distinguish whether the phone was being used by a driver or a passenger. "And GPS data is extra slow," Curry said. "It may take several minutes to register that it's moving."

So Zhou, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the U., devised a key that transmits a Bluetooth radio frequency signal that disables the phone while still allowing it to place emergency calls.

The device encases the car key. When the key slides out, a disabling message is sent and a "stop" sign displays on the phone, Zhou said. Incoming calls and texts are automatically answered with the message: "I am driving now. I will call you later when I arrive at the destination safely." The device can be programmed to allow incoming emergency calls or to work when the phone is operated with hands-free equipment.

The U. holds provisional patents on the technology, called Key2SafeDriving, and licensed it to the firm Accendo LC, which hopes to have a product on the market within six months. Projected cost per unit is less than $50, plus monthly service fees, according to Accendo, a Kaysville firm specializing in providing early-stage seed capital and business support for new technologies.

"Not only will it create a safer environment for everyone, it can be a great thing for saving lives and saving on insurance premiums," said Ronn Hartman, Accendo's managing partner. "We can take this product to market and sell it as a service, but it is best sold to service providers to sell as an add-on. We also feel we'll get great backing from the insurance and auto companies."

While technnology is the problem, it could also be the solution, Rader said. "Teens are more likely to use technology in general. They want to stay in touch with their friends. Teens don't recognize what the dangers are. They are especially susceptible to distractions."

bmaffly@sltrib.com