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Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

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Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#12
post #2

Nice research. This is fairly well known in insurance circles. Most auto insurers that do telematics consider hard braking the strongest indicator of risk. One of the things that we do at work (Cambridge Mobile Telematics) is build tools to deal with this risk. We have apps that monitor driving and we play a tone to indicate that a hard braking event was detected. Simply letting people know that they had a hard braki…

My mom had a device installed in her car to get a discount on her insurance, and she was always upset at the hard braking thing - whenever she did it, it was because another car was doing something unsafe that she couldn't control, like pulling out in front of her.

I hate the warning myself and I use the app the parent is from. I also suspect I am an outlier in not having an accident in 20 years.

It’s this obnoxious audio warning that tells me I had a hard breaking and it’s 9/10 because I stopped at a red light that I would not have made on yellow. And then it sends me tips and reminders about reducing hard breaking events and it’s annoying. I know they have done the analysis but it detects moderate hard breaking which is frustrating. One of those things that I am sure in net is positive but perhaps slices of the population it does not benefit.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#13
post #2

Nice research. This is fairly well known in insurance circles. Most auto insurers that do telematics consider hard braking the strongest indicator of risk. One of the things that we do at work (Cambridge Mobile Telematics) is build tools to deal with this risk. We have apps that monitor driving and we play a tone to indicate that a hard braking event was detected. Simply letting people know that they had a hard braki…

> We have apps that monitor driving and we play a tone to indicate that a hard braking event was detected. Simply letting people know that they had a hard braking event is an effective mechanism for behavior change (other companies have similar tech)

... How do people not notice that they are braking hard?

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#14
post #2

Nice research. This is fairly well known in insurance circles. Most auto insurers that do telematics consider hard braking the strongest indicator of risk. One of the things that we do at work (Cambridge Mobile Telematics) is build tools to deal with this risk. We have apps that monitor driving and we play a tone to indicate that a hard braking event was detected. Simply letting people know that they had a hard braki…

Insurance is thinking about hard braking as an indicator of a driver with riskier behaviour. Google is showing that it can also be an indicator of risky road designs. These actually kind of point in opposite directions in terms of the causes of hard braking. The certainly can be used in different ways.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#15
post #2

Nice research. This is fairly well known in insurance circles. Most auto insurers that do telematics consider hard braking the strongest indicator of risk. One of the things that we do at work (Cambridge Mobile Telematics) is build tools to deal with this risk. We have apps that monitor driving and we play a tone to indicate that a hard braking event was detected. Simply letting people know that they had a hard braki…

> Simply letting people know that they had a hard braking event is an effective mechanism for behavior change Has this been studied in isolation? Many of the tools that notify upon hard braking also are used to impose financial penalties for doing so... I suspect people may be reacting to the financial incentives.

Yep. We work with CMT and we’ve both done extensive testing on this. I think that often people don’t necessarily know what a hard braking event actually means, or how it’s quantified. Giving that realtime feedback helps close that gap in understanding

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#17
post #2

Nice research. This is fairly well known in insurance circles. Most auto insurers that do telematics consider hard braking the strongest indicator of risk. One of the things that we do at work (Cambridge Mobile Telematics) is build tools to deal with this risk. We have apps that monitor driving and we play a tone to indicate that a hard braking event was detected. Simply letting people know that they had a hard braki…

When you modify their braking behavior, is that enough to improve their overall driving behavior? Or do forward collisions and rear-enders make up substantially all of what the driver can control, so training the behaviors to reduce that type of near-miss reduces the driver's overall crash risk? To the point that it's similar to the safest tranche?

Is it that hard braking events are broadly indicative of surprises of lots of sorts, and so it happens that the only way to eliminate them all is to develop a full range of defensive driving habits?

More Goodhart's Law or Serenity Prayer?

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#18
post #2

Nice research. This is fairly well known in insurance circles. Most auto insurers that do telematics consider hard braking the strongest indicator of risk. One of the things that we do at work (Cambridge Mobile Telematics) is build tools to deal with this risk. We have apps that monitor driving and we play a tone to indicate that a hard braking event was detected. Simply letting people know that they had a hard braki…

Insurance is thinking about hard braking as an indicator of a driver with riskier behaviour. Google is showing that it can also be an indicator of risky road designs. These actually kind of point in opposite directions in terms of the causes of hard braking. The certainly can be used in different ways.

A driver who frequents risky roads is a concern to insurers, just as a driver who has risky behaviors.

The cause of hard braking isn’t mutually exclusive: bad driving or bad road design.

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#19
post #2

Nice research. This is fairly well known in insurance circles. Most auto insurers that do telematics consider hard braking the strongest indicator of risk. One of the things that we do at work (Cambridge Mobile Telematics) is build tools to deal with this risk. We have apps that monitor driving and we play a tone to indicate that a hard braking event was detected. Simply letting people know that they had a hard braki…

Insurance is thinking about hard braking as an indicator of a driver with riskier behaviour. Google is showing that it can also be an indicator of risky road designs. These actually kind of point in opposite directions in terms of the causes of hard braking. The certainly can be used in different ways.

(Though for an insurer, it’s the same thing - whether you’re risky because you’re a bad driver or because you drive on poorly constructed roads or around other poor drivers is inconsequential to them)

Re: Hard-braking events as indicators of road segment crash risk

#20
I got one of those dongles from my insurance company that plugged into the ODB2 port and reported my driving habits.

I was a bad driver. It would frequently beep at me to let me know that I had braked too hard. I was mystified. "What should I have done differently," I'd think, as I raged at the objective machine that judged me so.

The next time my brother came to visit, he called mom. "Oh, and presidentender is a good driver now." I didn't put the pieces together right away, but it turned out that the dongle had actually trained me, like a dog's shock collar.

The reason for my too-frequent hard-braking events wasn't speed, although that would be a contributing factor. It was a lack of appropriate following distance. Because I'd follow the drivers in front of me too closely I'd have to brake hard if they did... Or if they drive normally and happened to have a turn coming up.

Over the period I had the insurance spy box in my truck I learned without thinking about it to increase my following distance, which meant that riding with me as a passenger was more comfortable and it beeped less often. Of course since I'd been so naughty early during the evaluation they didn't decrease my rates, but I think the training probably did make me statistically less likely to crash.

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