Gamified app encourages safe driving habits

DriveWell monitors risky road maneuvers such as hard braking, cornering and phone use, to create a game of the safest driver.

Though the talk of driverless cars is rampant, we still have a long way to go, and businesses are increasingly offering intelligent assistive driving software in the meantime. We have already seen a pupil-tracking software that manages distractions, and now DriveWell is a new app that could improve motor safety by encouraging good driving habits via gamification.

The app is developed by Cambridge Mobile Telematics. Once installed, it will auto-launch at the beginning of a car journey. The app uses sensitive geoscopic diagnostics to detect hard-braking, cornering, unnecessary acceleration, or when drivers pick up their phone. Users can then access a log of their performance and receive a score out of 100, and share this with others to compete and see who is the safest driver. The team believes that by making drivers aware of these habits and encouraging improvement through gamification, users will develop strong safety habits on the road — a test in South Africa has shown safe driving levels improved by 30 percent.

DriveWell is currently in invite-only beta, and the team hopes the safe driver score could eventually be used to reduce insurance costs. How else can apps use the smartphone’s existing software to encourage safer driving?