In an effort to lower our car insurance premium we recently enrolled in one of those safe driver programs where they put a device in your car that talks to your smart phone and tattles on you to corporate. So far we only did it with my oldest son and I, and I have to say, I find it more annoying than informative.
It may be that other companies’ devices are able to gather more information to tell what’s really going on, but I doubt it. Ours basically uses an accelerometer to tell if you start too quickly, turn too tightly, or brake too suddenly. I assume it uses GPS data to tell how fast you are going and what the speed limit is in that area–which raises concerns, as such databases are not always correct. Since it also works with an app on your phone, it also can monitor your cellphone use while you drive.
It does okay. I do need to remind my son to slow down, and to not use his phone while driving. But it’s not as smart as one would hope. It can’t tell if you’re just checking something really quick on your phone while at a light. It can’t tell if you’re braking hard because you aren’t paying attention to the car ahead of you or because someone pulled out in front of you. If you brake hard, it dings you. If you corner quickly it dings you, even though sometimes you are making a left turn and want to get out of the way.
In short, it can’t tell if you’re a bad driver or consciously trying to avoid an accident. If some jerk cuts in front of you and then hits the brakes hard you’re supposed to just run into the back of him while you brake slowly, I guess.
We’re still in our first monitoring period, so it remains to be seen just how much this will impact our discount, but we’ve never been able to manage better than around 94%, and have usually been in the high 80% range. I’m starting to understand that commercial with the people yelling at other drivers, “DON’T MESS WITH MY DISCOUNT!” Because you can be safe driver (I’ve never had an accident, and it’s been nearly thirty years since my last ticket) and yet responding to someone else’s bad driving will still bring your score down.
If we don’t get a good discount this next time I’m yanking the whole thing. I don’t need to stress while I’m driving.