The ultimate backseat driver
On the road with an electronic driving instructor
Are you a safe driver? Not sure? Nick Heath puts an electronic driving instructor to the test in the streets of Central London.
As someone who once had nine points on my driving licence, I was prepared for the worst when asked to road test an electronic driving instructor.
Steeling myself for flashing red lights and screeching sirens, I reluctantly agreed to submit my motoring skills to the judgement of the GreenRoad Technologies Safety Centre.
Watch the video
See Nick Heath test-drive the GreenRoad Technologies Safety Centre in our exclusive video
The only sign of my electronic taskmaster once I settled behind the wheel of the VW Golf was a tiny set of tiny led lights resting on the dashboard. The reassuring glow of green showed the impeccable track record of the driver that I was about to carelessly besmirch with my shuddering stops and hairpin turns. As I turned the key and the engine roared the tiny sentinel whirred into life, ready to dissect my every twist and turn.
But squeezing through the corridors of parked cars in the backstreets of Central London, at a sedate 20mph, I was always going to be hard pressed to panic the system. So to my surprise my biggest misdemeanour was a brief flash of amber following a hasty emergency stop in a deserted road.
It fell to GreenRoad European VP Aidan Rowsome to really test the system. Soon the car was alight with reds and ambers as the inbuilt G4 motion detector, GPS and computer beneath the dashboard protested at Rowsome violating some of the 120 manoeuvres it can recognise.
Rowsome explained that it is this visual feedback that can produce near instantaneous improvements to driving, with most people reporting a change within six hours of using the system. "It is about getting that automatic feedback, it is like training a dog. If you don't get that feedback within eight seconds then you've lost that opportunity to learn from that behaviour. For 80-85 per cent of people they are going to moderate their behaviour to keep that light green," he said.
The benefits of the system are clear, figures from GreenRoad Technologies' clients show it can reduce crashes and risky driving behaviour by up to 50 per cent and drive down CO2 emissions by seven per cent. These impressive sounding figures have already won over Staffordshire County Council, which recently installed the Safety Centre in 50 cars driven by local teenagers and the MoD.
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GreenRoad Technologies is also in talks with major insurance companies, including US group AAA, about how its data could allow insurers to better target premiums and insure higher-risk teenage drivers.
Back at the GreenRoad Technologies Centre the grisly evidence of our journey was painted in lurid scarlet and yellow on a monitor, condemning the trip as red rated. Data beamed back by an onboard modem at the close of the journey enabled the Safety Centre software on a PC to break it down into individually ranked manoeuvres focusing on acceleration, corner and lane handling.
It classifies an overall journey as red, amber or green depending on the number of aggressive manoeuvres logged, with 50+ erratic manoeuvres counting as red. Each journey is logged to give your overall rating as a driver, reflected in the colour of the Safety Centre LCD monitor when you start your car. In future Rowsome said this granular breakdown of journeys could even help in police investigations and inquests into crashes.
For the fleet manager the system can compile information from every journey to give an instant snapshot of the standard of driving throughout the company over any period of time.
Rowsome said this can even flag up wider problems that need addressing, citing a bereaved employee in the States whose employers realised he had returned to work too quickly after they spotted a dip in his driving.
You could argue this is simply a 21st century version of the commands 'change gear' or 'slow down', which drivers receive from so-called 'back-seat drivers'. But there's some comfort knowing this latest criticism is based on calibrated sensors - and not harking back to an argument over forgetting to pick up the shopping.
Watch the video of Nick Heath test-driving the GreenRoad Technologies Safety Centre.