I saw the press release recently from State Farm regarding an update to their Driver Feedback App. The industry is pointing toward telematics as the way of the future, and thought I might investigate and see what the technology could do. I know, this app isn’t really the same thing as the telematics devices used to price car insurance, but I figured it was a good proxy since the systems have to be somewhat similar in terms of the types of data they record, and perform a similar but watered-down analysis and interpretation of the data. This app purports to help you “drive smarter” by following some common sense tips:

• Watch your speed!
• Leave plenty of space between your car and the car in front of you.
• Allow plenty of time for breaking.
• Be sure you’re not taking those turns too tight!
• Don’t take calls or texts while driving.

Ok, so full disclosure here, I’m somewhat of a gearhead. I like cars. I think there is a wonderful aesthetic about taking a machine and having control over your environment. For me, the act of driving isn’t just about getting from point A to point B, but rather an experience in and of itself. So, I’m immediately suspicious of anything in my car that might diminish the fun of the experience.

I was curious to see how these kinds of devices might work, so I decided to try the new app on a few trips. The interface was very simple to use. I just had to make sure my iPhone was lying flat with the top facing forward and press the center of the screen to start the trip.

The first couple of trips I found myself driving extremely cautiously. I accelerated gingerly, took corners very slowly, and started braking very, very far in advance of stop lights. This isn’t a natural way of driving for me, but I wanted to sort of benchmark how the app would respond by driving in an overly cautious manner. Even driving in this matter wasn’t “perfect”, in some aspects were apparently still too aggressive.

For a first trip, I had a score of only 87, despite driving hyper-cautiously. But, since the app doesn’t tell you how a particular score might be achieved, it actually seemed pretty arbitrary. I had two alerts relating to braking, both of which were “light.” Tough to fathom when I didn’t stop fast at all, so I have no idea what the threshold for an alert might be.

On my second trip in pretty dense rush-hour traffic, I got a score of 84. Again, not terrible, but since the scoring methodology isn’t revealed I have no idea how good that is or not. Chicago rush-hour traffic can be pretty crazy, so it shouldn’t come to anyone’s surprise that I had to stop quickly a couple of times. The app always disliked my rate of acceleration from stop lights, so I got an alert at every single one, even though I never pressed more than halfway down on the accelerator. On one of the alerts I was actually bested off the line, by a considerable margin, by a minivan from the mid 1980’s.

I decided on the third trip to just drive the way I normally do, and completely ignore the fact that the app was tracking the trip. That was actually more difficult than I thought it would be because Big Brother was watching and all that, so it was just easier to think of trying to get a lower score rather than a higher one. I once again got a score of 84. On my 26.7 mile trip, I had seven acceleration alerts, one of which was actually rated at “moderate” rather than “light” like all of the others I had received. The moderate alert was actually as fast of an acceleration to 45mph as my car can do as I was trying to avoid a cab careening into my 4^th point of contact as I was pulling away from a stop light, but the app doesn’t know that.

The feeling I got from the score on this app was one of being tested but without knowing what I was being tested on exactly. The app knows what I did, and how I did it, but not why. Why is important. Why provides the context for the course of action. If you can’t correlate the what and the how with a why, then any judgment you supply to that course of action is incomplete.

This app represents what I don’t trust about the current analytics craze. I want to know on what basis I’m going to get “dinged”. Unless I’m allowed to know exactly what data it’s recording and exactly how it’s applied, and the assumptions made about “acceptable” performance characteristics, I’m not going to put one in my car unless it’s mandated by law.