Advanced Driving Hub

akirk wrote:It would be an interesting study for us all to download the app and see the results... But...
- I don't want to give them my personal information
- I suspect that their understanding of safe driving is not an exact match with ours... Quit how a black box measures your abilities at observation / overtaking / etc. I will never know...

Alasdair

Black boxes can't measure safe driving. All they can measure would be acceleration and deceleration rates, and lateral movement. Whilst it may indicate that a driver has a competitive style of driving, this doesn't mean that the driver is unsafe. This is all based on assumption, not on actual evidence.

All this is the same as a speed camera which measures speed, and speed alone.

Don't measure something just because it's possible, measure what's important.

Nigel.

fungus wrote:

akirk wrote:It would be an interesting study for us all to download the app and see the results... But...
- I don't want to give them my personal information
- I suspect that their understanding of safe driving is not an exact match with ours... Quit how a black box measures your abilities at observation / overtaking / etc. I will never know...

Alasdair

Black boxes can't measure safe driving. All they can measure would be acceleration and deceleration rates, and lateral movement. Whilst it may indicate that a driver has a competitive style of driving, this doesn't mean that the driver is unsafe. This is all based on assumption, not on actual evidence.

All this is the same as a speed camera which measures speed, and speed alone.

Don't measure something just because it's possible, measure what's important.

Nigel.

Well said.

It is an insidious phenomenon that has been getting steadily worse as technology becomes embedded into more of our lives. People have simply stopped thinking and are making important that which can be measured rather than measuring that which is important.

Still, had a really nice drive just now. Loads of "Sunday drivers" out there doing 40-50 in the NSLs. Lovely targets for overtaking practice.

I think what they have failed to make clear here is that the North-East comes out top simply because they included North Yorkshire, but without identifying us specifically.

The direct line box measures:

• speed (probably in relation to the posted speed limit but it doesn't say)
• 'smoothness' - not sure exactly what they are measuring though
• acceleration - bet it penalises firm acceleration regardless of context
• time of day
• length of journey

It's little more than a marketing press release - it doesn't make sense to group drivers by geographical region - just think of Scotland (as a region)...I can't believe there are identifiable similarities between a driver in central Glasgow and one in the Highlands.

I know another black-box insurer that likes it's customers to use motorways (as they are statistically safer) than those 'nasty' A and B roads and therefore skews their scores accordingly.