Distracted driving is a serious problem. All through Distracted Driving Awareness Month, we saw staggering data and a few suggestions. Farmers Insurance announced the distracted driving monitoring app Signal, Life360 added distractive driving monitoring to its service, Mojo rewards non-distracted driving and Surete cuts out smartphone usage. Now any insurance company using the Octo Telematics UBI services can add distracted driving monitoring. Generally, insurers receive a discount by using an app or OBD dongle to monitor their driving.
Octo Telematics,(winner of AUTO Connected Car News’ Tech CARS Award) supplier of solutions for the auto insurance industry, announced its Distracted Driving scoring and analysis feature, now available within its suite of telematics products for both in-vehicle and mobile solutions: Octo Glimpse, Octo Vantage, Octo Fleet, and Octo Surround. The timely launch in April, which is Distracted Driving Awareness month, delivers this crucial safety feature to all Oct[o Insurance partners and their UBI policyholders.
Built upon Octo’s award-winning telematics and usage-based insurance (UBI) programs, its distracted driving feature monitors how the phone is being used during a trip, detects and analyses several risky behaviors with different severity levels and communicates the final details and score to the Insurance partner and their UBI policyholder. Unlike other penalty-focused distracted driving apps that may shut off a smartphone altogether, Octo delivers an education-based approach, monitoring and communicating feedback to drivers so they better understand the risks, and working with insurance customers to incentivize drivers to stay off their phones while driving.
“Our flexible platform allows us to work directly with insurance partners to build a customized distracted driving solution or one that fits into their existing UBI programs,” said Nino Tarantino, CEO of Octo North America. “Whether its increased discounts, rewards programs or other incentives, our approach is reward-based, not penalty-based, which is more effective in policyholder adoption of any type of telematics.”
The integration aligns with Octo’s membership in – and commitment to – Together for Safer Roads (TSR), an innovative coalition that brings together global private-sector companies to focus on improving road safety and reducing deaths and injuries from road traffic collisions. Other prestigious corporate members include AB InBev, AIG, AT&T, Chevron, Ericsson, Facebook, IBM, iHeartMedia, PepsiCo, Republic Services, Ryder, UPS and Walmart.
In order to support the widespread adoption of this important road safety feature, Octo’s distracted driving feature is automatically available to any Octo insurance partner, at no additional cost.
During the month of April AUTO Connected Car News published this articles about distracted driving:
- More Distracted Driver Awareness Month Facts Suggestions & Apps
- Older Folks Drive Distracted Too Solutions for Parents, Apps & Tech: Life 360, Mojo & Signal
- Crash Reports Lack Distracted, Drowsy, Drunk & Drugged Driver Data
- Distracted Driving Awareness with Reality Rides from Allstate
- There should be a Textalyzer & rules to prevent Distracted Driving
- Designated Texter from Honda
- NY Bipartisan Group Pushes for “Textalyzer” Tech to Check Texting While Driving
- NSC warns more driving injuries & fatalities show need for action