Drive Safe & Save‪™‬ 4+

Battery Usage

I enjoy that you’re able to see the specifics as to how they rate your driving & how they show you on the map where certain things happened if you get “dinged” with speeding/hard braking/phone usage, etc.
One problem I’ve noticed, living in an area where some spots can have a lot of deer, if I brake due to a deer running across the road (which you’d think would be the safe option), I end up getting a lower driving score for hard braking & it tells me to keep a safe distance from the car ahead of me.. except it was for a deer, not me following too closely.
Also, not too thrilled that it marks you down for using navigation apps, as I use my phone for gps sometimes. Even to skip songs or have someone else use your phone for you, it marks you down. I know it says the phone usage doesn’t effect the discount, however, it lowers your overall driving score which does effect the discount.
Another issue I’ve ran into now that I have to have my location services on all the time along with Bluetooth, I’ve noticed that my battery is dying so fast!! I used to get away with not even charging my phone at night sometimes because the battery would still be high enough from the previous nights charge & now I’m having to recharge my phone at least twice a day - it’s really kind of inconvenient. If I charge my phone while I drive (suggested by State Farm), then I can’t listen to music, as it uses the same plug in area on my phone.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for the feedback! Our app will use more of your battery than other apps, especially during a trip. The battery usage is similar to navigation apps because we use both GPS and Bluetooth services during the trip. One way to reduce the battery usage is to plug in your phone while you drive.

Good App but can use some improvement

I like the app but I would like to see some improvements. The app has improved my driving habits and has made me more self aware of what I need to continue to work on. No drover is perfect and every driver is going to make a mistakes at some point. Using this app has got me to set a goal to be a top 98% driver. Some my suggestions for improving the app would be to allow feedback on the events that happens. For example, there is a a turn I make on a corner that is sharp. This is just a bad planned out intersection that I have no control over. I took the turn from a complete red light stop but I still received a turning event because of the design of the intersection. Another example should be to notate a hard break. I was cut out by a driver make an unsafe left hand turn. If I wouldn’t have braked hard I would have been in an accident. I’ve also had a dog run into the street. Some thing are just outside of the control of drivers so being able to make suggestions on intersections or a justifying an event would be nice. I know some people would try to justify every event some place a maximum on those justifications to a maximum. Like one per week.

Worst Programming Ever

My husband and I each have our own primary cars. We each have a cell phone and we each have a beacon in our car. However, if our car is in the driveway and my phone is near (it picks up my phone and me as the driver according the helpline - “it can pick you up anytime and anywhere.”) This explains why I would get random, your trip is recording while I was sitting in my office at my computer and nowhere near a car. Anyway, unless I turn my phone off when I get in the car with my husband or am anywhere near his car, I have to spend tons of time reclassifying trips which is a complete pain and I don’t always have the time to do. Even when I do that, my husband doesn’t get credit for the drive of his car. There has to be a way to indicate primary driver of a given car… then if that person’s phone isn’t found in the vehicle and the other phone is, then that person must be the primary. I think the reclassification is helpful on occasion (like if I was driving instead of my husband on a given joint drive/trip), but mostly I would want his phone picked up in his car and me picked up when we are in mine. We are really frustrated with this overall app experience! We are diligent about not touching/using the phone when we are the driver. There are many homes that have multiple drivers and cars that are essentially designated as a primary car for each driver. This should be taken into consideration and accounted for when programming this app and experience.