Cellular telephone safety system

A method for improving the safety of cellular telephone use comprising the steps of

• providing a server computer system in data communication with a cellular telephone network;
• storing the geographical feature coordinates of a plurality of traffic features within a memory of the server computer;
• providing a computer program to operate within the server which computer program executes the steps comprising:
• responding to reception of geographical coordinates from the cellular telephone network by selecting from the plurality of traffic features a neighborhood of at least one set of geographical feature coordinates positionally related to the geographical coordinates;
• and
• transmitting the neighborhood through the cellular telephone network;
• providing a programmable cellular telephone hand set in data communication with a GPS receiver;
• and
• providing a computer program to operate within the cellular telephone hand set which computer program executes the steps comprising:
• querying the GPS receiver to obtain a current location for the hand set in the form of geographical coordinates;
• transmitting the current location through the cellular telephone network to the server;
• receiving the neighborhood from the server;
• storing the neighborhood;
• periodically updating the current location to create the then current location;
• comparing the geographical coordinates of the then current location to the geographical coordinates in the neighborhood;
• determining when the then current location is within a predetermined distance of one of the traffic features in the neighborhood;
• and
• issuing an alarm through the cellular telephone hand set in response to determining that the then current location is within the predetermined distance, whereby a user of the telephone is warned of proximity to the traffic feature.