Racelogic, the company behind the excellent Vbox in-car datalogger, has quite the novel solution to eliminating phone-based distracted driving.
The system is called TouchLock. There's a transmitter beneath the driver's seat, which is activated at a certain vehicle speed. It sends a small electrical signal to the seat, and when the driver picks up a phone, the circuit is completed and the phone deactivates certain functions.
Since the transmitter is only under the driver's seat, it only affects the driver. Passengers can use their phones as much as they want, and they can even use the driver's phone without issue. It only locks out the driver from certain functions, putting the focus back on driving. The driver can still use their phone while stopped.
Companies have had limited success in figuring out how to limit phone access to just one person inside a vehicle. Speed-based technology works, but it works too well, because it can't figure out the difference between driver and passenger. A recent patent from Apple uses sensors to determine who's driving, but it requires the driver to be wearing an Apple Watch, whereas Racelogic's system doesn't need anything more than the transmitter. Watch another demo of the system below: