More and more it seems we rely on our mobile phones for much more than just making calls to family and friends. Of course there are the apps – and we’ll get to a new one shortly – but what about sending text/SMS messages? The volume of text messages sent each year continues to climb dramatically (one estimate suggests 6.1 trillion were sent in 2010) – for many of us text messages are an integral part of our day.

We receive text messages at all times of the day – even while we are out on the road … And of course, it’s just a quick message, right, so it seems easy to steal a quick look at it, and maybe even tap out a quick response … Well, at this point, your driving has become distracted, and this could be really dangerous for you, and other people on the road. According to a study conducted by Car and Driver Magazine in 2009, texting and driving is more dangerous than drinking and driving, in terms of impairing your reaction time (more info here).

This might not seem like news for some of us, and yet people continue to do it, and when it happens the results can be deadly.

So, the easy answer of course is just don’t do it … but perhaps we need an app to take the virtual wheel for us, and control what happen with incoming text messages while we are out on road.

Allow me to introduce you to OTTER, a brand new Qt-based app in Nokia’s Ovi Store that is designed to help you manage text messages – and send replies on your behalf – when you can’t do it (specifically, while driving), so that you can concentrate on the road and the traffic ahead.

OTTER (which stands for “one touch text reply”), which will be part of demos with Nokia this week during CTIA Wireless, is the work of a Seattle-based software company whose concept for the app was literally the result of a dramatic near miss of the owner’s three-year-old daughter by a driver who was pre-occupied with texting.

This video from one of the co-founders of OTTER shows this new app on the Nokia N8:

As you can see, setting up OTTER is really easy – there are only a few options to configure to start using this app:

In the manual mode – if you get a text, you just tap a predefined response, and then get right back to what you were doing. with auto-reply enabled – which most of us should plan to use! – you can have the app send a message that you define; and in thos mode all incoming alerts (like new text messages or incoming calls) are silenced. You can then view messages later when it is safe to do so.

There is also a GPS-mode for the app. So, if you are driving and the car is moving more than 10 miles per hour, the app will kick in. You can customize the auto-reply message that is sent from this mode, too.

When setting up the various reply options, you can configure these to different situations or needs, so you are ready to use it at a moment’s notice.

And, if you have children who are old enough to drive, you can put OTTER on their Nokia  smartphones, too – and then use the the parental control feature built in to the app. This uses a passcode that you designate to enable OTTER, and then once the teen has stopped driving, simply re-enter the passcode to unlock it.

OTTER is available for $4.99 (USD) in Ovi Store, which is a small price to pay when you consider the potential costs of distracted driving.

More information is available on the OTTER website, and here are some resources for additional information about the dangers of distracted driving:  Oprah’s No Phone Zone; and the U.S. government’s website about distracted driving.