A short tip for keeping your phone away while driving

The other day I had to grab a USB-A to USB-C cable to use CarPlay in my spouse's car that I was borrowing, and I grabbed the first one I could find in my house which was weirdly only 6 inches long. I honestly don't know why I own such an odd cable, but I connected it to her center console port and had no choice but to put my phone inside the armrest and drive only using CarPlay features I could tap on the dash screen or access via Siri.

After a couple trips, I quickly grew to love it.

I have a bunch of friends that all have teen kids like I do, and we all struggle with how to balance letting our kids have phones that are within easy reach, but also devise rules for how to prevent them from using their phones while driving and potentially causing lots of harm to themselves and others.

Some friends have rules where their kids have to shut their phones off completely when driving. Some have a "backseat only" rule where their phones can't be in the front of a car anywhere near them while driving.

I think the 6" cable is a pretty good compromise if your kid's car has CarPlay in it. Whether your main USB port is in the dash or in the armrest, you can't physically use your phone connected to such an obscenely short cord and I think it's the obvious solution to maintaining driver attention but also letting them accept calls that we didn't know we had all along.