SPANISH FORT, Ala. — A new smartphone app developed, in part, by a Spanish Fort teenager not only minimizes distracted driving temptations but also alerts emergency personnel, friends and family in a crisis.

Matt Hogan, 18, helped create textPilot after catching himself texting while driving and having several friends involved in texting-related car accidents.

“There have been some very close calls, and I would be devastated if I lost one of those friends,” said Hogan, a rising senior at Spanish Fort High School.

The 99-cent app, which debuted in Apple’s app store Monday, includes several functions, most notably the driving alert function. Once the necessary information is plugged in, the feature alerts a customized list of friends and family that the driver is, in fact, driving and any responses to the text are forwarded automatically to the driver’s email address.

“It essentially says, ‘I’m driving. Don’t bug me,’ or whatever you want it to say,” said Hogan, who began adding additional safety features as the idea crystallized. The driver then deactivates the function upon arrival, which sends those same recipients a free-to-resume-texting text.

The text alerts can also be instantaneously integrated into a driver’s Twitter account, and it includes a global-positioning-system function that will send exact coordinates to selected recipients.

“That part came from the parent of a friend who said she wished she could just push a button and know exactly where her (kid) was. And if you have parents like mine who are super obsessive about where you are, this will make them very happy,” he said.

Hogan acknowledged the GPS feature might inadvertently make him the enemy to teens everywhere who don’t want to be tracked, but he reminded them the function is completely voluntary and the intent is safety — not stalking.

“We don’t want people creeping out other people or anything, but what we’ve got here is a new revolution in driving technology,” he said.

Hogan helped created textPilot alongside app developer Brian Schroeder and designer Joshua Hunt. Hogan is a former Greenville, N.C., resident who’s known Schroeder since he was a seventh-grader there, and Hunt is a Daphne teenager currently on a mission trip to Honduras.

“It just made sense to take this idea and run with it,” he said.

Hogan’s favorite textPilot feature, however, is the 911 feature. Drivers who press the emergency icon for three seconds not only alert emergency personnel of their trouble but also send immediate GPS coordinates to a customized group of friends and families.

“In an emergency situation, it’s seconds that count. This app provides that quickness when it counts,” he said. “We wanted to make it safe. We wanted to make it easy, and we tried to keep it as cheap as possible.”

In a perfect world, Hogan said the app would be able to actually intercept incoming text messages, completely eliminating the temptation to answer while driving. At the moment, however, the Spanish Fort entrepreneur said textPilot is bound by Apple’s rules and regulations that currently prohibit such activity. The trio is hopeful, however, that future upgrades will allow for the function.

District 5 City Councilwoman Mary Brabner briefed the City Council on Hogan’s accomplishment during Monday’s informal work session and called the enterprise a “huge asset” to parents and public safety.

“This is something that will go nationwide. I’d love for my kids to have it, and for me to get the message they’re driving,” Brabner said.

The app will also help subscribers remain in compliance with Spanish Fort’s strict texting-while-driving ban that took effect in May and makes the action a primary offense, meaning law enforcement officials can stop a driver for that reason alone.