This is a great idea: It’s a gadget that bolts onto your car’s dashboard and won’t let the engine start unless your phone is in it’s slot. The device is called the Origosafe, and it is designed to stop your teen from driving whilst texting, or whatever. And it will. As long as your teen has a Galaxy S3.

Fact: In this country, the chief cause of accidents that happen whilst texting is texting. The answer is not to educate your idiot children, but instead to spend yet more money on more gadgets – this time a $279 gadget that looks like a prop from a 1970s-era British sci-fi TV show¹.

Sadly, presumably for lawsuit-avoiding reasons, once the engine is running the phone can be removed with no penalty other than a shrill, piercing alarm. Given the music that today’s teenagers listen to, they mightn’t even notice. However, the unit will need to reset with the master code before they can start the car again.

It seems to me that this device might do little other than provide yet another distraction for an already hormonally-unstable driver. It certainly won’t prove to be any kind of deterrent. When I was a teen, my old (1969 model) Morris Minor suffered a dead starter motor. Did it stop me? Did it hell. I just made sure to park on a hill so I could bump-start the thing with a rolling start. Don’t expect today’s teens to be any less resourceful.

iPhone 4/S and 5 version coming soon.

• SourceDrive ORIGO
• ViaAndrew Liszewski