Much better than previous version - still more needing to be done
While I can certainly understand the issue some may have with the new ways of the “grading” with the update there are many more positives that outweigh the minor issues. I am a big fan of the fact that I will be able to easily track my mileage on business related trips when it comes time to do my taxes again as I spend a lot of miles on the road with my profession. The idea of my grade being hurt by using my phone while driving has helped reverse what was once a bad habit of mine. With that being said, it is unfortunate that I can be punished for phone use when my significant other is using the phone to find music, etc. Overall, I am very pleased with the upgrade and look forward to seeing the smaller improvements to come. One suggestion would be giving the user the option to either label a trip after it has been recorded or choose the nature of the trip before it starts such as “work related” to help with the tracking of total miles for those of us who use our business miles for tax deduction purposes.
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.
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.
Just having this app and beacon gives me a discount, which I appreciate. There is no driving bad enough to not qualify for at least some kind of discount, according to the FAQs. However, seeing that discounts could go into an upper range of 30% to 50%, I feel like I’m getting robbed when the app keeps flagging me for “events” beyond my control. On the first day of having the beacon, I was flagged for speeding when I KNOW I wasn’t. This has only happened once, but still it aggravated me. More frustrating is the “phone use” event. When my wife and I are in a car together, it’s usually me driving. But her phone connects to the beacon before mine can, for some reason. So she either has to remember to toggle her Bluetooth on and off, or not use her phone while being a passenger. We’ve been dinged on this issue a bunch. But it’s not the worst…. The “hard braking”……. Really, State Farm??? “Drive Safe and…..” get flagged for an “event”!!!!! This event, from my understanding, exists in order to encourage the driver to not follow to closely. I’m constantly keeping a 3-4 second space between me and the vehicle ahead of me. But I get flagged for hard braking when I AM driving safe—changing stop lights, people pulling out in front of me, etc. And it’s infuriating! I know I’m already getting a discount, but this kind of stuff keeps me from getting an even better discount, even though I do “Drive Safe” like the program states.
Lower scores for “braking” during inclement weather & road conditions.
I recently signed up for State Farm’s “Drive Safe” program and noticed a negative rating for “braking” on my score. After looking up when this occurred, it was on a day when we had snow & icy road conditions. My truck has a trailering package to assist the driver to help with braking - so I engaged it while going down a steep icy road. If I didn’t brake as much as I did, I might not be alive. The negative braking score happened again during similar weather & road conditions. I live in a state that gets snow & ice, which of course affects the way people drive. But, this program does not take into account road conditions or weather when driving. This is very unfair to the driver. This problem needs to be resolved and corrected, otherwise you are setting up the driver to fail & get lower scores. There also needs to be a way for people to be able to appeal & dispute these issues and have their scores corrected. Also, recently I got score reduced for speeding! I live in a rural area where half the time you are not aware of what the speed limit is. So, could you please have your app show drivers what the speed limit is in the area they are driving in? If your app can reduce a persons score for speeding, you can develop a way to show a person what the speed limit is in the area where they are driving!
My agent, Reeves Maddox and the entire tech department were unable to give me the specifics as to what numbers are needed in order to achieve a 30% discount. The same explanation of one’s driving habits, specifically the breaking, acceleration, cornering etc. determine your discount which does not explain the metrics used in order to receive your advertised 30% discount. I had to write a letter in order to finally get an answer. Apparently my having driven approximately 4000 miles and maintaining an average of 97% according to your app is not nearly sufficient enough to warrant a full discount. to add further insult to injury I have bundled my house insurance with my auto insurance, and have not had an accident or ticket in years. After months of trying to get an explanation I was told that in order for one to receive a 30% discount one would have to have driven around 500 miles for the year and averaged virtually 100% on the app. Furthermore, I was told that there are plenty of elderly, retired citizens in the state of Florida who meet that criteria (are you kidding?) Thus your advertisement that safe drivers can achieve a 30% discount is virtually impossible for anyone that drives to and from work and has a normal life. Why would anyone even have insurance if they are driving that little? I find your assertion that safe drivers can receive a 30% discount virtually unattainable in the real world. how utterly disappointing.
A few annoying things I noticed: acceleration. I drive a Prius so there’s no issue here, we all know it takes a minute or two for Prius to get from 0-60 Speeding - speeding for passing and getting over onto the right/slower lane, really?? Braking. The app doesn’t differentiate between unsafe braking, breaking because the light is changing and you really don’t want to run a red light, breaking because someone cut me off so I’m trying to be safe, breaking because one of neighbors’ kids decided biking in the middle of the street is more exciting for everyone else, breaking because the turn to my house is by turning left and cutting over two lanes of traffic and I need to slow down to get onto the turning lane… this is just plain wrong Phone distraction. I noticed that picking up a call over bluetooth doesn’t count as phone use but using google maps or having the passenger use the phone for whatever reason does count. If you have 10 trips with no incidents your score goes up by 1 point but if you have only ONE instance when you’re breaking to avoid going through a red light for example you lose a point?? Seriously???? That’s wacky if you ask me. Please, continue to work on the app. It’s a great idea/concept but does need lots of work.
Evidently the programmers of this program have never driven in heavy or medium traffic where it is safer to drive with the traffic rather than to be the slowest vehicle on the road, thereby causing other drivers to follow too close or swerve around causing even more hazards. I try to use the 2 second rule when following another vehicle which many times results in 1 or 2 other drivers moving into the space in front of me. Many times this happens when approaching a stop light that has just turned red causing me to stop more suddenly than I had planned. The ‘acceleration’ incidents are bogus because that is something I just do not do. I frequently have drivers too close behind me because the lane beside me takes off from a traffic light way faster than I do. When I try to avoid excessive braking, I find myself entering an intersection on a late yellow with it turning red while I’m in the intersection. I never have panic stops because when approaching a stale green I always plan where to apply brakes if the light turns yellow. If someone merges in front of me, I have to stop a bit faster than planned but it hardly ever results in a very hard braking event. Could it be that the events are more harshly graded to reduce discounts?
The app is easy to use and I like how you can see details and rating of your driving for every trip. However, it does not consider lots of things while rating my driving. Accelerating for example is definitely calculated wrong. Accelerating at specific acceleration in some streets roads can be dangerous while doing the same on highways for example is not. For example, let’s say you are entering a highway and the entrance to it is a sharp corner and then suddenly you are in the high way, you must accelerate in this case to change your speed quickly from 20-30 mph to 60-70 mph, if you do not do so, you might cause a crash! Of course, accelerating too too much is still unsafe but what is considered safe acceleration should be higher in highways than any other road. Same applies to braking, if you see traffic in high way that is not moving and you are moving at 70 mph you definitely would want to brake quickly as normally it’s not possible to see the traffic from very far behind due to our earth shape plus you need some time to realize that the traffic is actually not moving. Therefore, I do not consider the rating in this app to be an accurate indication of how safe someone’s driving is.
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.
Too sensitive and unrealistic expectations of “safe” driving
Updating my review after six months of use. As mentioned earlier, I initially thought the app was overall fair in it’s tracking of “events.” It seems to be randomly hyper sensitive to certain aspects though. Lately, it’s been cornering. I’m talking about sitting at a left turn arrow, waiting for it to turn green, and then going at a slow pace and turning left. Twice today I received a cornering event for that. Same thing with roundabouts. You have to be going about 1/2 of the speed limit for it to not be an event. Breaking is consistently sensitive, and I’ve determined that if you don’t start your stop to a red light at least a quarter mile in advance, it’s going to be deemed too quick and trigger a breaking event, which is not realistic at all. (Ironically, I have chosen to go through a yellow light that turned red right when I got there because I didn’t want to trigger another breaking event even though I had plenty of time to stop.) Since State Farm (unlike some other carriers) doesn’t give you any indication of how your discount is being impacted until renewal time and you get the bill, It’s hard to know what impact these events have on whatever discount I’ll get, but if it’s not something significantly better than the 5% I was given just to sign up, I will be sending my beacon back.
The other day I went to pick up a pizza I had ordered on the net. On arriving at the address I ordered it at I found it had moved. I drive off to a quiet side street and pulled over to the side of the street and stopped. I pulled put my phone and hit the phone number and the call we placed through my overhead Bluetooth speaker. I put my phone away and continued my call through my Bluetooth to find the New address. After they told me where they were I pulled away. On getting home I found I lost 7 points off my score. The app doesn't even check to see whether you're moving while making a call. On another occasion I pulled off the 60 mph interstate to an off ramp where there was a 25mph speed sign almost immediately on getting on ramp. I slowed down so when I got to sign I was at 25mph and they took off for braking. Also I've noticed if you're not careful on very sharp rounded turns you will get nailed for braking or acceleration. GPS isn't accurate enough on such a turn to measure total distance. On a straight line the distance might be 20 to 25 feet but with the turn is more like 80 to 90 feet so the GPS thinks you are braking to fast in a short distance or are accelerating too fast in a short distance.
This whole thing is so absurd and ridiculous. This thing penalizes you when using your maps, forget letting your kid use your phone when driving you’ll get penalized for phone use whenever you’re not using your phone. I can do 35 every where I go and it will have random spots that I know the posted speed limit is 45 and I’m supposedly speeding. If you let someone else drive you get penalized because of their driving errors. Seriously left my phone in my pocket and got a 1 star for phone use. Good idea terrible technology. All to save 15 to twenty bucks. No real incentive to invite this technology that clearly has no idea about human interaction. Oh yeah don’t avoid an accident by slowing down to quick because some doofus pulls out in front of you, you’ll get deducted points for braking too hard...it’s like they’d rather you cream the imbecile instead of driving defensively. The only positive reviews are from people that work for State Farm which in itself should be illegal. I have near perfect driving record and still have a good score in the app but the benefits do not outweigh the cost of downloading this app. Wouldnt be so bad if the phone penalty actually was from negligent use of a phone while driving. But it’s not. It’s anytime the phone moves around in your pocket or falls in the floor guess what phone usage, that’s a penalty! Now your score suffers.
I don’t believe this device provides a true assessment of my driving skills and abilities. While it registers that I am ‘using my phone’, it doesn’t know for sure who is using the phone. So while I am driving, my son, sitting in the passenger seat, is using my phone...NOT me! Yet, it registered that I am using my phone, and marks me down. Or another situation that should not be counted against the driver is when the driver is using the GPS on the phone for navigation. During this instance, the driver isn’t handling the phone, but the phone just instructs where to go. Additionally, when the phone is used in hands-free mode! How is that counted against the driver? And, it may make me down for braking too fast/hard, but it doesn’t know that a big-rig just pulled out in front of me, and my quick reactions to brake hard just saved my life, along with all my passengers lives...when it was the big-rig’s fault for pulling out in front of me to begin with. So, I think there are some areas that need some tweaking that needs to be done to make it more accurate.
Originally this app was just designed to work in conjunction with the drive safe & save app but State Farm made a few changes over the past few months and NOW the app tracks your speed, breaking, cornering etc. as it explains on their website. Not a big deal if you’re not a bad driver right? Wrong. I live in a huge city with bad traffic and worse drivers. I’m not going to be penalized when someone cuts me off and I have to break suddenly? Or I’m going to be penalized for those times when I have to speed up to avoid a dangerous driving situation? That doesn’t seem at all fair to otherwise good drivers. Thats not the biggest issue though because what it DOESNT tell you on the website is that it’s now also tracking phone usage. (If you look at your trips, it shows phone usage as the very last category it’s monitored.) So this means it’s tracking your phone use, which is extremely big brother-y and an invasion of privacy but it’s also setting people up for massive inaccuracies. This means when I drive our family car on the weekend with my husband as a passenger, if he uses his phone while he’s in that car as a passenger, it’s going to count as phone use! There are so many ways State Farm has changed this app to help them reduce your discounts that I’m surprised they have any customers left.
Good app but accuracy isn’t as good as it should be
For me I know myself as a good driver, and I always found my ability to deal with others reckless driving to be phenomenal compared to others. Which is why when I see the app take and take and take percentages for one, reasons it doesn’t say. Then two for a reason that realistically isn’t feasible. Like for example the latest deduction to my score was from a too slow acceleration at a stop light intersection next to a hill. It’s, “dangerous,” to accelerate too slowly into traffic at an intersection in which I wouldn’t be accelerating into traffic at. I’m not personally surprised with it being this way seeing as the accuracy of it can’t be perfect to any degree. I’m just not happy to see a score go down where it shouldn’t, especially the amount hit takes off as well. With that too I will say I’m currently still applicable for the extra discount but, if the accuracy of the app takes away the discount and charges me more for a policy when it’s not deserved then I’d side against the app more than with. I’m okay with it currently, but the taking away percentage without any reason, or stating any, “events,” part should be corrected.
I love the app but my husband and I drive together frequently and switch out as drivers multiple times throughout the day. The app does not typically pick the correct driver whenwe are together. He has to use his phone for work calls and when he is on the phone, I am driving. I wish the app would ask as a pop up alert at the beginning of a trip “Are you the driver?” If you select YES then it has selected the correct phone to pair with for the trip and if you select NO then it should look for another phone to pair with. I do realize that you can select that you were the passenger after a trip but it would be much nicer if you could just pick at the beginning. Then State Farm would know the phone distraction is appropriate for the driver and you could change it later to a passenger used the phone if needed. Also, I feel that this app encourages you to go through yellow lights so you don’t get dinged for braking. Another issue is when you are getting on an interstate you must accelerate or you get run over but you get dinged for acceleration.
The sensors in the cars are too sensitive as far as braking and accelerating are concerned. I have had only two relatively hard braking maneuvers since I started the app that I might consider an “alert” or a potential problem if someone were to be following me too closely. The technology in the sensors have suggested multiple events. Many are confused with braking to a STOP while descending a hill. None were an avoidance maneuver or a “tire screeching “ event. I have NEVER accelerated fast enough that would be construed as dangerous to my vehicle or anyone elses, or any pedestrian should there have been one. City and country driving are certainly different and a faster acceleration is necessary when entering roads where the traffic is moving at higher speeds or in poor visibility intersections. The sensor is just poorly calibrated. Also known road conditions could be incorporated into the data ie. stops at the bottom of hills, starts up a hill, roads with hairpin curves. The worse part is that for each event, I am basically “charged” money from what would be a discount on my invoice. Hopefully improvements in the current technology will lead to the point of an accurate picture of a driver’s/vehicle’s performance.
Update after Developer Response: I changed my review from 1 to 4 stars. At the time I wrote my 1-star review (below), that function had been removed. I am glad it is back now. Giving 4 instead of 5 stars because it’s still not perfect especially for things like when they have the speed limit wrong. I know they have a procedure to fix those, but it’s too annoying to do and should be easier to report. Original review: I don’t appreciate that the ability to classify whether the connected phone was a driver or passenger, was taken away on the last update. My phone has the app but my husband’s doesn’t. He doesn’t want the app. Every time we’re both in the car and he was driving, for the several months the feature was there, I always made use of it, switching it to passenger for those trips where he was driving. It’s actually literally happening right now as I type. But because you took away the ability to specify my phone as a passenger phone, the app will now assume I was using my phone as I drove! I don’t appreciate that.
I don’t mind the app, like the perks, but you literally have to check each trip, because I was on the Interstate and the only reason I knew to look at the app, was because the Google Maps, picked up the 40 mph speed on the on ramp which was about a football field and a half long with the loop, so the app showed me as doing 51. And speeding supposedly because of the way it picked up on the ramp’s speed and not the fact that I was in a 50 mph speed area for over a mile and a half of constant 51 with that 40 in the middle and back to 50. So it is good that the customer can send reviews on the roads. Because sometimes when Road Work is going on speeds reduce. So I probably look like I don’t know what’s up. So it seems that I have to constantly let them know what’s up. But I give Drive Safe and Drive a 5 Star for their research on roads. Many go from 60 to 30 in no time. And I don’t get the steering idea! I am a good driver and have turned around to go get something from a house that I had forgotten an item and I get a bad turn cause I made a total turnaround. I don’t understand some of it.
An Archaic Artifact older than the civilization itself
Despite multiple feedback resonating with this review and lost in the stacks of many more, this antique app lives on. Despite advancement in technologies which this gizmo conveniently skips over we are left with an unsightly vintage. Maybe the developers of this app and the technology are time travelers from millenniums ago that came did their thing at drive safe and save ;) headquarters and receded back to the bliss of the 1st century AD. I am certain folklores can be unearthed if we looked hard as to how those asinine time travelers were banished to even step into the pebble stone streets of the dawn of the civilization. Human reflexes are life saving measures we all are genetically adorned with. Why let such ineffective technologies get in the way. Let this app be lost through to the outer space with the last remaining ozone gap in the stratosphere. But hey this app can’t go up that high. So we should just accept this as the harsh truth we StateFarmers have to live with.
When getting onto the bypass, where I live, you have to accelerate so slow that you enter the bypass at a unsafe speed almost getting hit at the same time. Also with sharp turns if you at not going 5-10 miles an hour you will get dinged on the app for taking a turn to fast. Also the app says to keep a safe distance from other drivers so that you won’t have to break hard well I do and it still dings you if you compensate for the other driver breaking hard. Also if you are keeping a safe distance from the driver then you are not going the speed limit and where I am at that can get you a ticket or get you stopped by police. The app also said that I was using my phone when I was stopped and it had fallen into the crack of the seat. Didn’t give a option for me to say I wasn’t driving. I also had my rate increase and never decrease with this app and company. This app is one of the worst apps I have used for driving safe and saving. It definitely promotes risky driving as it is wanting people to drive slower than the speed limit to get the best discount which will cause accidents and road rage.
I’ll start by saying I’ve used Liberty Mutual’s version of this app, and it was worse. Both are unfair, but it was way harder to recover from a single “event” with the other app. That makes me more grateful for this one. However, it does have a lot of the same issues. I could say the problem is that it’s too sensitive, but I think it’s deeper than that. I’d love to be as perfect of a driver as the app wants me to be. But I didn’t get to design my streets or my city, and I don’t control other drivers. There are times when I’m required to accelerate quickly on a highway. I have to turn sharp corners in my neighborhood. And other drivers don’t care about being safe and don’t have an app monitoring them. It’s easy to just not be on my phone, drive slowly, and be cautious. But I’m worried that my insurance company is being told that I’m a bad driver, when I’m actually just avoiding killing an animal, causing a wreck, or running a red light. I signed up to get a discount, but at this point I almost wish I’d just paid extra. I feel like I’m being spied on and then insulted. But I know it could be worse.
I had an average of 95 and above for the first few months I had the app. This is my last month before my renewal and it has consistently rated me very low by giving me low scores for speeding and acceleration. I have been doing “test runs” by deliberately driving in the same areas and recording my mph. It said I was speeding in a 60 mph zone when I had my cruise control on 60. When I hit the area in the highway where the speed limit increases to 65 it immediately shows where I am speeding when I increase my speed to 65. I work off of this highway and travel in the 65 mph area frequently. I drive a 6 speed and it also gives me low ratings when I turn onto busy roads where you have to turn onto them and get moving or get ran over. It is not a high rate of acceleration but just moving with the traffic to keep it moving. I was told by my agent that your discount does not depend on these scores and it is mostly determined by the number of miles you drive. I drive less than 7k per year. I live 2.4 miles from work. The commercials give a completely different story. I believe it is a device that is not accurate (as i can prove by it saying I sped when I was going the speed limit) and I will leave State Farm if I do not get a good discount.
I being monitoring closely the app what i like is the it tells you right away about your score points . State farm got better yes I understand thy keep improving and listening to their customers. Before i was saying theres not way an app will tell if im a good driver or not and I still stand for it . And app won’t determine if im a good driver or not ,this app misses a lot to be good . I being driven for years had 0 accidents and this app says im a bad driver with this points lol also if gps notice the is only one road and you cut the road through the parking lot to get to the other side , the app will automatically say the you speeding because it can’t figure out the you used a parking lot from store to store and since you get there faster it will say you was speeding. Lol I like the option where you can say if you where driving or passenger was using the phone to check something maybe gps and want to see an address but still need to add more stuff. Like allow us to choose if the event was a gps error or system error . So we don’t get sanctions for system errors
Just dinged for using my phone…parked…at my house. I drive about 100 miles/month at most these days. I used to keep a score of 95% or higher, but it seems to be more sensitive these days. I got dinged for stopping (slowly) at a stop sign and then again for slowing to yield on a right turn. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how to drive without using the brakes. It also dings me for going the speed limit. On a road that is posted at 35, the app thinks it’s 25 and says I speed on it. If I drive 10 below the speed limit other drivers are going to get angry with me. I called and offered to send picture of the speed limit sign, but they said they couldn’t do anything to change it. I drive like as if I’m trying to keep bowl of soup from spilling, yet my score keeps going down. Re: to App Developer. Understood. However, the score is the only thing we, as customers/drivers, have visibility to. When you give us poor scores for safe driving simply because the app is over sensitive, it’s not fair. I shouldn’t receive dings on my score for going the exact speed limit when your app thinks it’s lower than what’s posted on the road. If I went 25mph on a 35mph road, I’d risk road rage from other drivers around me.
I’d like to start by saying that I actually like the app for the most part. Pretty cool way to track your trips and see how you can improve your skills if necessary. I do have an issue as I keep getting Hard Breaking Events when I did not and not sure what or why it is thinking that I did. I’ve had a couple of times that were completely correct; one that was my mistake and another when I was cutoff by another vehicle. Not sure how the app can be improved to note when you have to break swerve to avoid an accident but concerned with all of the other times it is nothing an event that did not occur. It also does not do well with certain corners. I have a few right turns in my area that are at 45 degrees plus a highway off ramp that has a lane that directly merges at a comfortable degree onto the surface road but anytime I take those turns it is grading it as a fast cornering event. Other than those two issues most everything rose is extremely accurate. For now I’ll keep using it but if the two issues mentioned are not corrected I may have to stop using the app.
My wife and I have our own vehicles and we have a beacon for each vehicle. They are set up independent of each other. My trips are showing up on my wife’s phone as well as her independent travels in her car. I have Uconnect in my van and if my phone rings. It comes through the car speakers hands free. It come out as phone usage as though I’m using my phone illegally, which I never do. If my wife is traveling with me and she is using her phone, it comes up as phone usage on both of our beacons. We called State Farm who told us that we have to let me get into or near the vehicle first so it registers my phone first??? Umm, no matter who gets in the car first, it still shows up on both apps. It also shows hard breaking. You better believe I sometimes have to do some extreme hard breaking. We live in North CHICAGO! Anyone who’s ever driven near Chicago knows that there are a lot of times where you better hit the breaks or you’ll hit the inconsiderate driver that just cut you off without using turn signals, not looking or caring about having proper clearances and could care less adult anyone else on his/her road. Fix your app!!!
Would rate 5 stars but the phone event is inaccurate
I love drive and save as it helps save money, and helps create better driving habits. I would have given 5 stars but the phone score is seriously inaccurate and impacting the amount I can save. My phone, drive and save, and beacon are all connected to my car. I use GPS and it speaks through my radio for directions, along with music. When I get into my car I always buckle up, set the station I want to play, and my gps before I ever begin driving. If someone calls me, it goes through my hands free radio and answers the call through radio. Perfectly safe and no distractions. I just noticed this because I haven’t touched my phone while driving at all. No one else has touched my phone while driving. It sits in my phone holder under my radio. Anytime someone calls you or texts, app notifications, your phone screen lights up! I don’t look at it nor do I touch it. An event should only register if the screen lights up and is moving simultaneously. Please fix this give the option to correct or report if an event is wrong. Otherwise the app is lowering your savings completely.
Not only does State Farm lie how this supposedly works they are completely ignorant and lie to all of their agents how this works. I went 3 cycles without a discount and agents telling me that I should be getting a discount but nobody has the ability to actually find out why it does not give a discount. The agents are left in the dark of how this is suppose to work and are lied to by State Farm how this actually functions as even branch I went to actually think that little box actually has the battery power to record everything for over a year when all of that is handled by the phone. They also believe that the box wirelessly communicates with the vehicle which is a complete lie. All of the metrics are hidden behind a secret without any capability of improving because nobody can explain why this garbage cannot properly function. Roads are very out of date for the speed limits. All of the metrics appear to be calibrated for a SUV and all sedans get automatic bad scores due to the lower center of gravity. I can drive an SUV the same as I do my sedan and not get any hits but constant hits with the sedan. Avoid at all costs. State Farm deserves a class action lawsuit for the lies and deceptions they are trying to pull with their agents.
You really need to merge the Drive Safe & Save functionality into the main State Farm app and have it run solely off the phone’s location services/GPS. This is how Allstate’s Drivewise works, and it’s MUCH better. Drive Safe & Save is dependent upon an external Bluetooth device, which interferes with other Bluetooth activities a smartphone may be conducting at the same time, such as streaming music through a vehicle’s audio system or streaming driving directions via a GPS mapping app. Also, if someone is streaming music or utilizing a mapping app for driving directions, the Drive Safe & Save application senses these activities as cell phone usage while driving (i.e., it perceives these activities as distracted driving). Drivewise does not sense these as cell phone usage while driving and, therefore, does not register them as events. If I were the developers for this app, I would go back to the drawing board, tear this app apart & rebuild it from the ground up so it functions within the main State Farm app, functions like Drivewise does, and allows for more policy owner control over what trips should be considered true events. Drivewise is, by far, the better application in both design & functionality.
I enjoy seeing the feedback on how I am driving. My husband and I compete for the highest score. However, there are a few things about the app that I don’t like. First, I wish that I did not have to be logged into all of the vehicles on my account. I drive a car other than my own very rarely. But my phone will hook to my husband’s car when I’m a passenger, and then I get his driving score. But what’s worse, if I pick up my phone while we’re driving down the road, I get counted off... and I’m not even driving! I really get aggravated by that. Secondly, I have been doing nothing wrong and have been counted off for braking because I chose to stop rather than run the red light, or because I came over a hill and a farmer was stopped in the road. Situations that are completely out of my control, and I get counted off. That also irritates me a bit. It is a bit ironic to me that I get penalized for not running a stoplight, but if I were to run through it, my score would not be affected. Seems to me, one of these things is worse than the other.
This app is actually pretty useless and the discount it gives you is equally useless. For allowing State Farm to track my every movement, I save something like $20 every 6 months…it isn’t significant unless you have a car that just sits in your driveway that you never drive. It is also inaccurate. I got “cornering” a few times because the app thinks I’m taking some wild turn that would actually be illegal to make because the gps location is off just enough to ignore the real turn that is a curved turnout. It also hates and doesn’t understand roundabouts which are all over the city I live. It will ding you for braking, acceleration, and cornering every time no matter if you are going the speed limit and taking it easy. Keep in mind I’ve never been in an accident in 25 years of driving so I must be doing something right. I dread the thought of testing my brakes when there is ice or snow out now because I’ll probably get hit with “hard braking” when I’m doing it in the middle of an open neighborhood street to test my stopping distance - as is recommended by our department of transportation. I will probably trash this thing and pay the very minor increase in premium.
Really disappointing that this whole program doesn’t work very accurately. It doesn’t record all our trips even though it has access to location and Bluetooth 24/7 (which is dumb but whatever). I hate that it has to use my phone at all. I had a Tiwi box in a work vehicle once and it did everything itself. My wife is one of the most cautious drivers I know and she still frequently gets flagged for events while driving. She drives like a grandma but the app claims she brakes hard, turns hard, etc. Same for my driving as well. If someone suddenly stops to turn in front of me or a light turns yellow, I think to myself “oh great I’m gonna get flagged.” It also reports speeding at rates I’ve never driven. One time I noticed I was going a little fast and when I looked down I was going maybe 7 or 8 over. I backed off immediately but the app claimed I was going 12 over in that spot. My wife was in the car and also noticed my speed, which was not 12 over. Using a phone to track speed is NOT accurate as location will sometimes jump or “catch up” on itself. I’m grateful for the discount (assuming we get to keep it) but I really don’t like the program.
As many have complained, the sensors are very inaccurate. Hard braking, accelerating and cornering are all too sensitive. Sometimes I stop relatively quick because the traffic light changed while I’m going 60mph. Today at 55, I saw the light change to yellow while 500 feet away. I didn’t drift to a stop, but nobody would call it hard braking, and yet I was dinged. Also, on the same trip, dinged for accelerating hard. Seriously, I drive a mazda3 with the smaller engine, and was not in a hurry. Yesterday I was dinged for speeding 3 times on a 3 mile stretch of road. Wrong! The app claimed the speed limit was 30, but was actually 40. I called the number in the app to report it, but was told they don’t handle those problems. I verified with her the number listed in the app to report speed limit problems was her number. Also, if I’m dinged 4 times on a trip, wouldn’t there be a difference if the trip were only 5 miles with 5 traffic lights, compared to 55 miles with 24 traffic lights? Either way its a “poor” rating. I drive 55 miles each way to work daily. The stress and frustration this caused me is DEFINITELY not worth the $5 savings.
Overall the layout and functionality of the app is pretty good. The details for each trip were nice to see, but they recently removed the star rating from each trip summary. Now you have to go into each trip specifically to see how you did. The extra claims/taps seem unnecessary. Also, there have been times where I’ve been “dinged” for items like speeding, or hard braking, but when you look at the associated map, there are no occurrences reflected for location. It makes me second guess the legitimacy of some of those reports. Lastly, there are some scenarios that I’d like to see addressed. For example when I’m stopped in a parking lot either waiting for my kids, I may use the phone. Once I resume my drive (with them in the car) the app can ding me for phone use. That doesn’t seem right. Also, I can’t let anyone use my phone while I’m driving Or, use my phone in my own car if someone else is driving. The system isn’t smart enough to know the phone is being used by a passenger. I’d like to see that addressed.
I’m convinced the purpose of this app is to give State Farm information to use to try to deny any claims made following an accident (it is; see edit below). What so many of the other reviews have said is true. This kills your battery, invades your privacy 24/7, and dings you for nonsense. It is very inaccurate in the grading, yet I fully expect that if an accident occurs SF will use this inaccurate info to try and blame me so as not to pay. Not worth it. Edit: Despite the developers’ repeated claims that the this app is used “solely to calculate the discount,” here is what the splash page when installing the app says: “State Farm will use this information for a variety of purposes including but not limited to insurance rating, claim handling, such as, accident reconstruction and research purposes, and may include the use of third-party service providers.” Claim handling and accident reconstruction. Sorry, but I am not going to allow a woefully inaccurate app to be part of my “claim handling.” This thing says you are speeding when you aren’t, braking hard when you aren’t, cornering when you aren’t, using your phone when you aren’t… and you want to use that info for “accident reconstruction?” No thanks!!
Me and my wife really enjoy this app, it passes along great savings. I have noticed I do drive a lot more responsibly as well now (don’t speed, don’t get on phone, always thinking about the road ahead to avoid excessive braking/cornering). This is great especially since we recently became first time parents and drive much safer with our baby in the car now. One recommendation though, if me and my wife are in the car and she’s a passenger. She gets dinged for being on her phone even though she isn’t driving so every time we drive somewhere together she has to remember to turn her location services off. Sometimes she forgets to turn it back on and it misses some of her trips. My suggestion would be to have the app analyze both users phones and select the user who’s phone had the least amount of dings during the trip (ideally the actual driver should have less dings then the passenger in any case).
The concept is great, it’s a little too sensitive for braking the most, and for turning to fast also. I have been marked down for the braking my car did to lower speed, and even if you leave a very safe distance in front of you, when that person in front stops hard, you will still stop somewhat harder than normal to keep that safe distance. Has nothing to do with being too close. Or say the light changes to yellow, you know it turns to red fast so you stop to catch light but have to brake harder to stop in time. It’s not an unsafe stop, would definitely be more unsafe to run through intersection on a red light. The braking gets me frequently and I am definitely not stopping too hard. Occasionally the turning to fast gets me, but the speed it wants you to turn is more unsafe then going a little faster to the points it’s says typing turned too fast. Have never had an issue with accelerating too fast so that doesn’t seem to register as too sensitive for me.
I will say what everyone else is saying. I understand that an app like this won’t be perfect, and it doesn’t take external factors into account. The main issue is the hard braking assessment. I understand that it’s trying to discourage following too closely, but getting dinged for braking when a light turns yellow or when someone cuts me off is quite annoying. If I ran the red light, I wouldn’t get points taken off since there would be no hard braking, but I would rather not do that. The other one I find an issue with is the cornering. My area has a lot of multiple lane roads to turn onto, so wider turns at slightly faster speeds are acceptable and manageable. The app doesn’t think so. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect me to slow down to 5mph when I’m making a wider turn. It just gets people angry and can be more dangerous, especially in heavy traffic. Overall, the app is fine and there’s a discount no matter what. It’s just annoying that you could be the best driver in the world and not have a perfect score because of external factors.
I like the feature where you can mark that you are a passenger, however I don’t know if it actually helps your discount or not. For whatever reason it when I am a passenger in my husbands truck that I never drive, it ALWAYS records the trip on my app and dings me for being on my phone. Originally before the update I was told by State Farm that the phone portion did not effect your discount, but after my husband added the feature, the next time my ins renewed my discount went down. So I don’t think that was true. I just don’t understand why it doesn’t pick up on his app, even if he is the first in the vehicle. I have to try & remember to turn my Bluetooth off every time I ride with him & it’s quite annoying. We aren’t even on each other’s insurance, just connected for a multi line discount. Billed separately. So why am I even connected to his beacon to begin with. Of course some of how it dings you is still insane but I guess any discount is better than nothing. Just ridiculous how sensitive it seems to be with things like braking.
UPDATE: thank you for the non automated reply but could you address my specific concerns about the app? First, I loved the app. I know I’m a good driver and it showed that. Then the app was revamped. Suddenly I’m getting dinged for speeding in a 45 zone when I barely made it up to 20 between an exit ramp light and the already red light across the overpass. Then it started being more sensitive on the other factors. Decided to stop for a yellow rather than take a chance on running a red. Got dinged for hard braking. And yes I was doing the limit. Someone decided to use my lane and theirs so I get dinged for acceleration because I avoided a collision. I travel less now than I ever have but lost $20 off my discount. My score was always around 98% with a discount of $254 every 6 months. I actually dropped to 89% a couple weeks ago. The app needs to be readjusted for real life driving. We shouldn’t be penalized for correct reactionary driving. And stop replying with a copy and paste phone use/time of day disclaimer. It just shows you don’t bother reading your feedback and you do not value your customers.
This makes me more nervous. A squirrel runs in front of me, I lightly brake and it dings me. I have to speed up in a roundabout quickly because a semi doesn’t want to stop and I get dinged. I am doing the exact speed limit in town and I’m about to get run off the road. I had perfect driving score and my score dropped without an explanation. I am more distracted now watching me speed, constantly looking at my score (not while I am driving of course). All because my Insurance is really high. I have a clean driving record. Car is three years old. People are telling me to go elsewhere and start saving. I have been with State Farm since the 80s. You would think that should account for something. UGH! I work 29 miles away and I am being scrutinized for driving too much. Double UGH! They should talk work miles out of the equation. Those are must miles. My savings should be bigger. Well that’s my thought on Drive and Save! Have a nice day. Evanne Seymour
First off- design wise, it’s a major issue to drain a battery at the rate this app does. It checks your location approximately every 10 minutes or less instead of only when you’re driving. Therefore, even with the best battery available, get ready to have it drained constantly, affecting your lifestyle and daily use drastically. Then, and most importantly, the parameters for safe driving are absolutely unreasonable and essentially unfair. This teeters on the ethical promotion of a limited AI system of driving only without the understanding that there needs to be margins of error (even in the safest conditions) for human drivers. Sharing the road with people who make mistakes leads inevitably to the need to drive defensively, and thus necessitating intense braking and maneuvering. The app doesn’t care. Instead of applauding you for making safe decisions and protecting yourself, it penalizes your scoring. This is therefore ethically incorrect and also very poorly designed. I’m sure it is all a necessity for the sake of “legal” issues or insurance rule sets. However, as an imperfect human being, I have a duty to note the issues at play and why I oppose. Thank you for reading.
Doesn’t feel like it’s very accurate. I break with plenty of time to not hit someone in front of me maybe I’m breaking too slow or too far behind a stoplight. I don’t know I stay far behind people so I don’t hit them if they break fast you’re not giving anything to judge on what’s good braking or bad braking or acceleration I also accelerate fairly slow, so maybe I’m just going to slow to get points deducted as far as phone distraction I only use my phone to listen to Pandora or get directions. I don’t know if it’s marking me down a little bit for doing that but I don’t text and drive and for some reason my phone distractions at 96% I only use my phone to get directions and listen to Pandora and it marked me down for that. I guess my breaking I break a long time before I even get to a stoplight I stay behind people far enough away, so maybe I’m just breaking too slow I don’t know so it doesn’t really give you very good judge on what’s a good acceleration what’s good braking because I Accelerate pretty slow so maybe I’m just doing it too slow I don’t know
I am not an aggressive driver. The app does, however, not take into account that being in the flow of traffic sometimes means traveling at speeds in excess of posted limits triggering an “event”. My neighborhood is a left turn off a four lane highway and the deceleration lane is short. I scrub off some of my speed to enter that turning lane and apply brakes when my wheels are straight. Big brother sometimes declares that my slowing is too abrupt and posts another event. Operating my vehicle in an appropriate and courteous manner sometimes means that my scorecard will have a formula generated report which indicates that my driving is not perfect. I submit that my driving history of over fifty years would identify me as a driver deserving a reduction of premiums to be charged. When the discount comes I will either smile and continue, or invite big brother to kindly exit the vehicle after it comes to a complete stop. I appreciate the visual record of my trips the plan provides. I will reserve final opinion of having a monitor sitting on my shoulder at that time. TM
I’ve only been using this app for 2 months, and I’m already over it. The two main roads I live off of basically require me to make u-turns; in order to make these turns, I have to come to a stop before proceeding and each time I get marked with cornering. When my husband and I are both in the car, we cannot choose who is driving in order for the app to know who to track. When I drive and he’s on his phone, we get marked down, and vice versa. Yes, we can mark it after the fact but it doesn’t change the score. I agree with what most are saying about the hard breaking. The tracking is just inaccurate. But my biggest complaint is that your phone has to be set at always tracking you. This app is meant for travel, not meant to know where I’m at when in my home. And if I turn off my Bluetooth or change the tracking to only on when using the app, you hold my phone hostage by putting up your warning which I cannot clear out of until I change to let you always track me. Seems kind of creepy and inappropriate. Here’s hoping I get a discount at renewal.
Many roads do not have speed limit signs. How are we supposed to know if we are speeding when there is no sign? It is also hard when the speed limit changes abruptly. One road I travel is across Lake Purdy, and one section is 20 mph. That is very hard to go 20 mph and I always get a speeding rating when I drive across that bridge! I am using my cruise control so I won’t speed and have been tagged many times in one area, going to pick up my grandson from school twice a week. There is no way I am speeding, because I’m using cruise control and I know the speed limit. The braking is tagging me at weird places on a 4 lane when I know I never brake hard. It is way too sensitive to pick up the infractions I am getting. Many times braking is forced because people jump in front of me. Braking is WAY too sensitive. I use the Drive Safe because it really saves me money - usually about $200 every 6 months, but I’m still not happy that it tags me when I’m driving SO carefully. I never slam on my brakes and it ticks me off that I’m tagged for it.
$144 BILLION company and this is the shït app they give us? Don’t listen to music via Bluetooth through your vehicle though they build vehicles with components to listen to music, don’t use your maps via phones to know where you’re going, don’t drive over bridges because the gravity will make it look like you’re speeding…though you’re slowly breaking, they WANT you to slam on your breaks. BUT they don’t want you to slam on your breaks because that’s reckless…so hit grandma! And if your spouse uses the same app with the same account and they are in the car with you using THEIR phone it looks like you are just driving around googling the movie times for next Saturday. Get your shït together State Farm! You take more money from hard working Americans than you give out…trust me. It’s so hard to get you to cover a claim. What you do CLAIM is to give us savings with a drive safe app but you’ll nickel and dime every move or none-move we make to not pay out! Scam! So unrealistic. AllState has a better app and from what I’m hearing better rates. I’m looking into it today. I have my home owners insurance with SF too. Not anymore. I see you. Scam artists.
My trips consistently rate 5 stars, sometimes 4 stars, rarely less, yet my percentage is in the 70s. Individual trips aren't much help since the categories are so few and offer little to no advice. I called Support and explained my accelerator works perfectly normally but has a hair trigger which is the only thing I can think of which would bring that reading down. My driving is safe and usually flawless yet the app consistently rates my braking and acceleration lower on the rare 4 star trips, but again are most of my trips are five stars. Kinda hard not to "mess with my discount" when the app is logging incorrect readings despite the blue tooth reader being mounted properly. By the way I am 67 years old with no tickets or accidents for decades so I'm pretty sure I know how to drive. My braking is done properly, easing into it yet constantly reason hard braking events. Something is wrong with your device readings - period. I'm just waiting to lose the discount, which I don't see on my bill anyway.
Welcome to Drive Safe & Save, a safety app that can help you save on your State Farm® auto insurance and improve your driving habits. You’ll get a 10% discount for signing up and completing the setup steps! After the initial participation period, how you drive will determine how much you save—up to 30%.* The Drive Safe & Save app automatically records your trips and helps you understand your driving habits—what you’re doing well and what could be improved.** Along your recent trip routes, the app shows you opportunities for safer driving by flagging these events: acceleration, braking, cornering, phone distraction and speed. (Events are opportunities to improve your driving.) • Check the app often to see: • Your safety scores • How much you’re saving per enrolled vehicle • Your trip routes from the last 30 days • Number of recorded trips from the last 14 days • Opportunities to improve your driving habits • Number of recorded miles from the last 14 days • Any vehicles on your policy that are eligible or enrolled in Drive Safe & Save Connected Car State Farm cares about your privacy and won’t sell your information. Collected data is used to help you create safer driving habits and may be used to calculate the amount of your discount. Learn more about State Farm privacy practices on statefarm.com®. *Discounts may exceed 30% and vary state-to-state (NY capped at 30%). Not available in CA, MA, RI. A discount may not be available in NC depending on individual facts and circumstances. Setup required. **After you enroll, we’ll mail you a beacon to place in your vehicle as part of the required setup steps. The beacon works together with the Drive Safe & Save app to accurately record your trips.
