Nationwide SmartRide Nanny

[dg_moore]

My days of "spirited" driving are over for now. I just installed the Nationwide SmartRide sensor (plugs into ODBII port) - it will remain for 6 months and record my driving habits. Gentle driving qualifies you for a 30% insurance premiumn discount, which is a significant saving. I'm sure there are many here who wouldn't be interested in this deal, but being retired I like to save money where I can.

The sensor checks for miles driven (looking for <8,000 miles per year), amount driven after midnight, and harsh starts/stops, defined as accelerating or decelerating at a rate exceeding 7.7 mph per second. Results are collected daily (via cell technology) and posted to your web page weekly. If your cumulative scores are low enough you get the discount at the end of the test period.

 

[landtuna]

Wifey signed us up for a similar program with Allstate. So far she has been caught doing nasty braking a couple times and I was caught exceeding max speed of 80 for .2 mile (gotta be careful with this rocket ship).

It does cause you to slow down and anticipate things a bit more cautiously. One unexpected drawback.....if someone else drives your car and is unaware of the device they might get more spirited than allowed and you will receive the ding. Our response is to pull it out if someone else drives. It does not seem to affect anything.

In addition to measuring acceleration and braking it also detects miles driven and time of day. Afternoons are worse than mornings and after 11pm is terrible.

 

[dg_moore]

Wifey signed us up for a similar program with Allstate. So far she has been caught doing nasty braking a couple times and I was caught exceeding max speed of 80 for .2 mile (gotta be careful with this rocket ship).

It does cause you to slow down and anticipate things a bit more cautiously. One unexpected drawback.....if someone else drives your car and is unaware of the device they might get more spirited than allowed and you will receive the ding. Our response is to pull it out if someone else drives. It does not seem to affect anything.

In addition to measuring acceleration and braking it also detects miles driven and time of day. Afternoons are worse than mornings and after 11pm is terrible.

It does make you think about your driving for sure. There is forbearance built into the eval process - sometimes you have to accelerate or brake hard in order to avoid an accident, so a few such events don't hurt your score. Also, like you say, you really get dinged for driving after midnight or for driving more than 8000 miles per year. Even so, with Nationwide you get an immediate 5% discount just for signing up.

 

[landtuna]

There is forbearance built into the eval process - sometimes you have to accelerate or brake hard in order to avoid an accident, so a few such events don't hurt your score.

I am not familiar with programs other than Allstate but ours definitely dings your score for even one hard or critical braking event (there are two levels). It will almost immediately drop your anticipated score by 3 points then gradually creep back up if no more hard braking events are registered.

Also, hard braking measures speed at the beginning of the event. You might think going very slow would cancel out the event but it doesn't. Both my hard braking events were in parking lots when some bozo backed out suddenly in front of me. In both I was doing less than 15 MPH when I began to brake. Sometimes you just can't win.

The discounts do seem worth it.