New phone app helps people feel safer

University of Missouri students are helping others to feel safe wherever they are.

The app you download on your phone is called Safe Trek.

“It’s kind of a bridge between doing nothing and calling 911,” said Nick Droege, Co-Owner and Chief Operating Officer of Safe Trek.

Droege and four other University of Missouri students created this app after hearing several of their friends said they felt unsafe walking home at night, but did not want to call 911.

You use the app whenever you feel uncomfortable like walking in an unlit parking garage.

You simply hold down the button on the app until you get there safely.

Once you are in a safe place you can take your finger off the button and enter your four-digit pin number.

However, if something were to happen and your finger was taken off the button, if in 10 seconds you don’t enter your pin number, 911 would automatically be dialed on your phone.

“It also alerts us in the case that a person is in a situation where they can’t talk on the phone and hang up,” said Droege.

Safe Trek’s call center will then get in touch with local police and give authorities the path you were walking.

“There may be some advantage that the app can provide in location or at least some advantage as to where the person was walking or direction of travel,” said Joint Communication’s director, Joe Piper.

While Joe Piper told ABC 17 News he has not seen the final app yet, location in any emergency is the first and most important question.

This app along with helping people to feel safer is also collecting data of where people are feeling unsafe.

Droege told ABC 17 News they hope to identify trends of unsafe areas and provide it to police departments and cities so they can make adjustments like adding lights in certain areas to make for a safer community.