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Is Your Driving Being Secretly Scored? The insurance industry, hungry for insights into how people drive, has turned to automakers and smartphone apps like Life360. (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Does it actually tell you the results? I'm curious how they score your driving, and how effective it is. The scariest things I see on the road are things like:

  • distracted driving
  • tailgating
  • lack of awareness

I don't see how they'd measure how safe a driver you are.

Perhaps it's just that people are more careful when they know they're being monitored, and safe drivers are more likely to opt in?

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    For each trip it tells you things like how often you touch your phone, what % of the trip you spent using your phone, and how many times you braked hard (which is a proxy for things like tailgating or general inattentiveness, since it can't see the road). Mostly it seems to be a "don't use your phone" score. There's an overall score, and you can see how big your discount is, but the score itself is largely meaningless without the ability to compare to other drivers.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Does it have any mechanisms to detect someone who might just install the app on an old phone that just lives in the glove box? Seems like a real easy way to get around the "don't use your phone" aspect.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Tailgating is actually pretty easy to measure - there are specific patterns of braking and acceleration.

    Innatention may be measurable too. For example, if an inattentive driver frequently drifts from the center of the lane and makes small quick corrections periodically, that would be apparent from accelerometer data.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    How would they even know you are the driver and not a passenger?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    I don't know, but mine guesses correctly when I'm a passenger about 90% of the time. Unlike the other commenter, mine doesn't have a bluetooth connection to my car or a device in my car.

    Once in a while I have to tell it I'm not driving.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    There's an app installed on your phone and a separate bluetooth device you keep in your car.

    By default, it assumes you're the driver of your car, but you can use the app to claim someone else was driving your car during a particular trip.

    If you're in someone else's car, the app assumes you're not driving because the bluetooth device in your car isn't nearby.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    My car can detect if there's someone in the passenger seat, and sends an alert if they didn't fasten their seat belt.

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