The Off Switch is a simple card and app that helps you keep your eyes on the road, quieten non-essential apps, and still use maps, music, and emergency calls in line with UK driving laws.
On this page, you’ll see how it works for everyday driving, learner practice, and longer journeys, the routines that tend to stick, and what drivers usually notice once it becomes a habit.
The Off Switch
× Drivers & Learner Drivers
What you’re trying to do
If this sounds like you, you’re in the right place.
1. Stay within UK law on phones while driving, including at traffic lights and in queues.
2. Cut the urge to glance at messages, socials, or emails while the car’s moving
3. Keep navigation, music, and emergency contact available without opening the whole distraction floodgate.
4. Help new or anxious drivers build calm, steady habits around the car and the phone together.
5. Feel safer and more in control on busy roads, night drives, and longer trips.
Where it starts to go wrong
The problem isn’t that you don’t care about safety. It’s that the phone’s designed to ask for attention, and the car gives it plenty of chances.
1. When the car’s moving, a buzz or flash on the screen pulls your eyes away for a couple of seconds, long enough to miss a change in traffic, a braking car, or a crossing pedestrian. What starts as checking a single message turns into skimming a thread or app while the car is still rolling, transforming a glance into a dangerous distraction.
2. When you stop at lights or in slow traffic, reaching for the phone becomes an automatic habit at every red light. The light turns green while you’re still half in the screen and half on the road, and even those brief moments break your concentration and disrupt the flow of the journey.
3. On long or stressful journeys, notifications can feel like welcome company during motorway miles, late-night drives, or unfamiliar routes, but every glance adds risk and fatigue. Group chats, work messages, and social feeds pull your attention away precisely when you already have the most to process on the road ahead.
4. For new and returning drivers who are still building basic habits, extra stimuli from a phone make it harder to listen, scan, and plan calmly. Even well-meaning supervising drivers who try to “keep an eye on things” by using their own phone create split attention, undermining the learner’s confidence and safety.
5. With navigation, music, and audio needed for the journey, turning the phone off completely feels unrealistic. But leaving it fully on means every other app sits just one tap away, relying entirely on willpower to keep you focused on driving.
How The Off Switch helps
Think better
The Off Switch gives your brain fewer things to juggle. When you quiet the apps that drag your attention away, your working memory can stay on what matters most, like speed, spacing, signs, and what other road users are doing. You’re not constantly deciding whether to check “just one thing,” so you avoid the tiny mental arguments that wear you down and slow your reactions. Over time, your brain starts to treat “phone quiet, eyes up, hands on the wheel” as the normal state for driving, rather than something you have to remember from scratch every journey. Driving feels more deliberate and less scattered, and it’s easier to spot hazards and plan ahead.
Live easier
In practice, it comes down to one small step. You set up a Driving mode once, choose which apps stay quiet, and then make “tap the card” part of the process of starting the car. Route on, audio on, tap, drive. You don’t have to dig around in settings every time or rely on willpower at every red light, because the card is doing some of the work for you. The card lives where you already look when you settle in, like the dash or console, so the habit fits the way you use your car. It also makes life easier for the people teaching or sharing a vehicle with you, because there’s a clear, shared routine instead of a fresh, awkward conversation every time the screen lights up.
Feel calmer
When your phone stops shouting for attention, you feel calmer. You’re less jumpy when a notification appears, less guilty about “sneaky” checks, and less wound up by half-read messages you can’t really deal with until you park. Your attention isn’t being yanked back and forth between the road and whatever just popped up on the screen. New and anxious drivers often feel steadier when they’re not splitting focus between learning the car and managing their phone. Family, passengers, and instructors notice that you’re more present with them and more confident behind the wheel. That sense of calm adds up, trip after trip, into a quiet confidence that you’re doing the safe thing for yourself and everyone around you.
Routines that work well for drivers
Everyday commute drive mode
Wh0: People who drive to work, study, or attend regular activities most days.
When: Every time you start a familiar route to work, college, or the gym.
Apps off: Social media, messaging, email, shopping, and games.
What stays on: Maps, live traffic, music or podcasts, hands-free calling, emergency services.
How it helps: Turns the commute into a repeatable, low-stress block where you don’t have to negotiate with yourself at every ping.
Learner and new driver lesson mode
Wh0: Learner drivers, newly qualified drivers, and supervising adults.
When: Lessons, practice sessions, and the first solo journeys after passing.
Apps off: Everything that isn’t needed, including messaging, socials, and browsing.
What stays on: Navigation if agreed with the instructor, emergency contact, and breakdown cover.
How it helps: Reduces competing demands on attention while new habits bed in. Helps both learner and supervisor stay fully focused on the road.
Class mode
Wh0: Parents and carers doing school runs, clubs, visits, and holiday drives.
When: Morning and afternoon school runs, evening clubs, weekend trips.
Apps off: Work email, work chat, and non-essential apps that pull focus.
What stays on: Navigation, audio, emergency contacts, and any agreed family tracker apps.
How it helps: Keeps the drive centred on children and the road, not on incoming work or social noise.
Motorway and night-driving focus window
Wh0: Drivers who regularly use motorways or A roads, or drive at night.
When: Before joining a fast road, a long single-carriageway stretch, or a night route.
Apps off: Any app that needs looking at or typing.
What stays on: Navigation, speed-camera alert apps if you use them, audio, and emergency contact.
How it helps: Reduces visual load when scan patterns and reaction times matter most.
Common questions
Will this let me use maps and music while I drive?
Yes. You decide which apps stay available in your Driving Off Mode. Most people keep navigation, audio, and emergency calling, and turn everything else off. You still need to set routes and playlists before you move off, and you mustn’t handle the phone while driving.
Does the Off Switch replace the law or my own judgment?
No. It’s a support, not a loophole. You still have to follow the law on phones while driving and the Highway Code. The Off Switch makes it easier for your phone to follow those rules.
What if I need my phone for work while I’m driving?
You can keep hands-free calling available while muting email, messaging, and other apps. If you regularly take work calls on the road, you can set a specific Driving mode that keeps those channels open while still keeping the phone out of your hands.
Where should I keep the Off Switch card in my car?
Choose a spot that fits your routine. Many people keep it on the dash or console, so tapping’s easy at the start and end of a journey. If you know you’re tempted to bypass your own rules, you can keep the card in the boot or glove box so you’d have to stop the car to change modes.
Does this work for learner drivers and supervised practice?
Yes, as long as the driver has an iPhone that supports the Off Switch app. You can set a simple mode that keeps only the essentials on and make tapping the card part of the lesson routine. Supervising drivers can also use their own card and mode.