Steer Clear® Ratings and Reviews

Good practical information

The driving portion of this app is sensitive. I can imagine it is difficult to make a perfect driving companion app without an external device. Thankfully it is not counted towards your discount, and is just for your reference so it doesn’t irritate me much.

I really do like the modules. They’re very quick and give practical information that you tend to only pick up yourself after driving for a year or so. I really hate that they have such good material but the quiz portion is lacking. Sometimes the topics of questions aren’t brought up in the video at all. Also silly things, like testing on terminology like “head check”. Call it a “head check” or a “shoulder check” doesn’t matter, just do it.

I liked the upbeat music, and I thought it was amusing how the voiceover says “periphefial”. Can’t complain. Really solid app, material, and graphics.

You guys have better UX than most company apps so cheers! (or not, drive safe)

Good idea, very poor execution.

I’ve been told by many people that I am one of the safest drivers they know. I was taught by my mother who has never had any sort of traffic incident on her record in her 33 years of driving. This app is a wonderful idea to ensure people are driving safely, but it is not executed well at all. The app is much too sensitive. To get anywhere near 100% on acceleration and braking scores, you have to drive like you’re afraid of the pedals. To “safely” accelerate, you have to pull off so slow that people are coming through the back window! To “safely” brake, you have to start braking WAY too early, and it just makes the people behind you mad. I’m convinced that this app isn’t to make me a safer driver; this is an app to make me a danger to those around me and to myself. State Farm I hope you really read this. Driving slower than the rest of traffic isn’t safe. I tested this app driving normally, and it gave me a 50% driving score. This is intriguing because on my Drive Safe and Save app, which is also owned by State Farm, that same drive was rated at 5 stars. Perfect score. It’s also annoying and tedious that I have to manually start and stop drives in the Steer Clear app when I don’t for Drive Safe and Save.

Developer Response ,

Hello,

Thank you for your feedback. We are aware of some of the concerns you have mentioned and we are currently looking to enhance the driving feedback experience for Steer Clear. Since we utilize the mobile device only to score trips we are somewhat limited with how we score. Drive Safe and Save utilizes a beacon and scores trips based off of driving speeds which we do not consider when scoring. We are evaluating new technologies to get more accurate readings for scores in the future while still only utilizing the mobile device for the best experience.

Good idea, bad execution

In theory, I’d love this app. Tips for driving? Tracking and giving feedback on your driving? Sounds great! However, this app underperforms at both of these roles.

Firstly, the lessons. The mandatory lessons you go through are extremely basic, and they the quiz portions have questions that weren’t even covered. Additionally, some of the “right answers” are the polar opposite of what they teach in driver education classes.

Second is the feedback on driving. I consistently scored well on the acceleration and turning categories, but my braking was between 50-70% of what the app said a good score could be. I made sure to brake carefully and softly, but it was impossible for me to get a higher score without being a traffic hazard due to slowing down twice as far as other people. Also, while I usually did well on the acceleration category, when I took routes with higher speed limits, it would drastically lower my score due to accelerating “too fast.” However, if I didn’t accelerate fast enough on these busy roads, I would be hit by the cars I had to merge in front of. Finally, your phone has to be in a stable position for the whole trip. Don’t have a phone stand? You’re out of luck.

In conclusion, this app is not a good resource for any drivers. The only reason I used it after learning about its issues was because it was mandated for a better insurance rate. This app will only teach beginner drivers bad habits that will endanger themselves and others.

Unnecessary time limit

At first when driving my mom had just started longer trips and soon realized that the time spent v.s the tracker were COMPLETELY different. Later we found out this is due to a limit the app sets for 30 minutes... so I was only getting a 4th of the time I had driven. Also be aware that you must keep your phone in a stable place otherwise it won’t score your driving. Overall the set up of the app is practical and easy to manage, just extremely touchy. On certain drives where I feel like I’ve done better than previous trips I will often have a much lower percentage, so I personally didn’t think it reflected how well I drive all too accurately but that could also just be me. Majority of my complaints aren’t anything too bad but extremely aggravating I would still recommend it to other people but I would’ve preferred a somewhat repetitive notice reminding drivers.

Steer clear is not accurate and too sensitive

Steer clear is extremely sensitive!! Before I did it I read an review that said to get anyway near 100% you had to drive like you were afraid of the pedals and IT WAS RIGHT! I am a good driver and while using and doing the app I have tried to be extra cautious of slow acceleration and slow braking. I braked so perfectly that you couldn’t really feel the car stop. I told my mom and made her come in a drive with me to see how I was driving. She couldn’t believe the scores it was giving me for how well I was driving. Also if your phone moves the tiniest bit, it won’t grade it!! I loss 30 minutes of driving and it wouldn’t score it because my phone moved! It consistently gave me a 50%. I accelerated so slow that cars around me would get annoyed and the app would tell me that I had a rapid acceleration. ARE YOU SERIOUS?!! I only did it so I could get a discount and go on random drives so I can meet the time limit and get done with it as soon as possible. No matter how perfectly you drive you will get a low grade.

Whatever, it gives you a discount regardless.

The modules are short; I finished them in less than an hour. The transcripts of the videos are mostly accurate, though one was blank entirely and there are a handful of errors that make sentences not fully understandable.

The driving is... frustrating, at the very least. I recognize that as a Jersey driver, I’m not the gentlest, but there are just some roads that have sharp corners, and the speed limit is 45, and I’m not going to go 20 mph and potentially cause an accident just because I don’t want this app to ding me for “sharp corners.” Depending on the roads, I can tell when my score will be higher or lower, because highway stop lights and turns on some roads are not this app’s friend. But apparently the scores don’t really matter for the discount regardless, so I’m learning to care less (even though I secretly want to unlock all those badges).

Developer Response ,

Hello,

Thank you for your feedback! We will look into the video modules and see if we can get those transcripts corrected. We are glad you are enjoying the badges and we have plans to enhance that feature some time later this year. And you are correct, the scores of the trips do not have any significance. They are only there to give the driver feedback for improvement.

Thanks!

SF Enterprise Mobile Team

Driving portion kind of bad

My dad is one of the safest drivers out there and he taught me. I always keep a few car lengths away from a car and keep my eyes ahead of traffic to predict what may happen. Not too sure how the acceleration, turning and braking is measured, but I do feel that it’s a little too sensitive. I’ve tested the driving scores and noticed that you have to be excessively slow in order to get a good score on the driving portion. I am fully aware that driving too slow can pose just as much a hazard as accelerating too quickly as well. I just wanted to point out my experience with this app and the driving portion in hopes that the app would be updated and more helpful for future drivers who use this app. On the contrary, the review portion of the app was amazing. It provides information that every driver should follow regardless of what age they are or how experienced they are.

This app is TRASH

Modules are pathetic, didn’t learn a thing. You have to set the trip every time in order to get the discount for 5 HOURS of driving. Keep in mind it resets every 30 MINUTES. So that’s 10, 30 minute trips that HOPEFULLY get recorded because if your phone moves even slightly it seems like it trashes the whole trip.

Totally needs some work to be easier to use possibly the same as the drive safe and save app which I’ve had no problems with. Don’t understand why those same drives that automatically recorded accurately to be used for credit for their expected 5 hours of drive time.

Unhappy all around with Steer clear, everything else about State Farm and their other app drive safe and save are good. STEER CLEAR is a juvenile attempt at teaching young drivers to be better drivers. The developers for this app really half assed this one.

Developer Response ,

Hello,

Thank you for your feedback. We do limit trips to 30 minutes so there can be at least 10 trips recorded where you receive helpful feedback and scores on driving to help users improve in areas where it is needed on the road. We differ from drive safe and save because we do not have a beacon or device that syncs up with vehicles. All of our scoring is done strictly from the device to make course completion more convenient for 16-25 year old new drivers. In the future we are reviewing new mobile technology to help us improve the experience with driver feedback and scoring trips.

Read this BEFORE you start the app

We learned the hard way That this app does not share it with other devices. We had started the classroom modules on my iPad and then I started the driving on my phone. We learned that none of the work on the iPad would transfer to the phone. You will have The same problem if you set up one device for the car ride and a separate device for the tests.

That was very frustrating and time-consuming. The app itself is picky. If your phone is not completely stationary in the car it will not pick up the drive. My phone was sitting in a phone carrier and still have this problem.

On the plus side, it is nice to get a grade on each drive and know what needed a little adjustment.

This app needs work and serious updating

The app need some serious modifying. It is completely inaccurate the majority of the time. It scores your braking, cornering, and acceleration completely different every time you drive in spite of the fact that you drive the same way or better each trip.
In my opinion, if you’ve got your permit, drove with a licensed adult for a year, completed Drivers Ed, and obtained your state drivers license you should not have to compete a 5 hour driving log to get this certificate. You should simply answer the questions in the 5 sections and then get the discount. My son did all the above steps and yet we had to wait until he got 5 hours worth of driving logged to get a certificate which we then had to make a trip back to the insurance office to turn in, just to get the discount on his premiums.