Recent Survey Reveals Parents Demand Distracted Driving Protection Technology
TransUnion and Cellcontrol, a leader in distracted driving prevention and usage-based insurance data collection, have joined forces to offer a new technology that provides enhanced protection against distracted driving. The announcement was made at TransUnion’s Insurance Summit in Chicago, a two-day gathering of more than 100 insurance executives from across the nation, in an effort to help combat cell phone use among teen drivers.
A recent TransUnion survey found the demand for products that discourage cell phone use while driving was significant. The survey of parents of teen drivers found that their most common concern about their child’s driving safety was talking on or holding the phone (66 percent) followed by typing, texting or interacting with their phone (63 percent) while behind the wheel. In fact, parents are twice as likely to worry about their teen driving while texting or interacting with their phone than driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol (34 percent).
Roughly three in four parents (74 percent) have instructed their teen to turn off their phone, but that is often not enough to prevent distracted driving, according to the survey. More than one in three parents (35 percent) has taken active steps to make driving safer for their teen by physically disabling their child’s phone when they are driving.
Cellcontrol’s proprietary DriveID™ technology has multiple modes of operation. Protection mode is the insurance industry’s first and only driver identification platform that accurately detects who sits in the driver’s seat and immobilizes devices so that drivers cannot inappropriately use these devices while driving.
Audit mode allows for use of the device while driving to be monitored thus creating a clearer view of the risk an individual poses to an insurer or the basis for discussion about driver safety for families. The technology is designed to integrate into any platform, to connect with most mobile devices and gathers auditable, accurate driving performance data using existing connectivity.
DriveID comes ready to stop all mobile distractions, including texts, phone calls, emails and web browsing. Emergency calls (i.e. 911) are always allowed through the system, and parents or account managers can decide which mobile functions to allow in ‘protection mode’ through an easy-to-use online application. Parents can also receive notifications of excessive speed, hard braking, device tampering and tracking the driving route of each trip.
This service and data provides consumers lifesaving technology, eliminating the temptation of bad habits while protecting young drivers, passenger(s), bystanders and other motorists as well as providing financial savings by eliminating crash severity/frequency. The solution will be made available through special programs to insurance carriers, and directly to consumers.
About the Survey: The 2015 Teen Driving survey was conducted online with 1,000 parents of teenage drivers from May 1st – May 5th, 2015. Developed and sponsored by TransUnion, with fieldwork performed by Toluna, a leading international market research firm, the research was national in scope yielding results weighted and balanced to U.S. census parameters. The results have a projected +/- 3.5% Margin of Error at 95% confidence for “All Respondents,” and a projected +/- 4.0% Margin of Error at 95% confidence for demographic, attitudinal, behavioral and other subgroups.
About Cellcontrol: Established in 2009, Cellcontrol delivers the world’s leading technology to stop distracted driving for passenger and commercial vehicles. The company’s patented distracted driving prevention platform and flagship product, DriveProtect, eliminates talking, texting, and browsing on any mobile device while a vehicle is in motion. Cellcontrol’s mobile device policy enforcement technology has been recognized by the Consumer Reports, the Consumer Electronics Show and the National Traffic Safety Institute, and is used by families and Fortune 500 companies.
Source: TransUnion
