the wheel. The Webinar format that we’re using today does not allow us to show the actual videos from the system and they are very powerful. Instead we asked Lee McDonald of A.M. Best to send our judges an actual clip from Teen Safe Driver. Thank you, Lee, for doing that and I encourage the judges to watch their clip – I know some of you have – following the presentation.
What I’m about to show you is a series of screen shots of that same video. Please note that the video was obtained by our program partner, DriveCam, with permission from the families. American Family does not have access to any of the recorded video footage, which is sent to the families.
I’ll move through the screen shots pretty quickly to try to simulate the video. Here we see a young driver on the highway, applying lipstick as she drives. She notices too late that she’s drifting toward a car stopped on the shoulder and makes a sudden turn to her left to avoid the crash. She then makes a hard turn back to her right. As the car veers toward the ditch, she overcorrects, turning to her left, putting the car in a spin as it re-enters the roadway. As she cycles through the spin, she momentarily squares up to a semi in the next lane before ending up pointed head-on at the oncoming traffic in her original lane.
This young driver was very lucky to avoid serious injury and I’m guessing our young driver had quite a conversation with Mom and Dad. But who knows if that conversation would have ever taken place if she were not in our program?
Parents and young drivers often sit down with their insurance agent when the young driver gets his or her license to talk about safety issues, along with the cost of adding a young driver to the family insurance policy. Both of those issues are important. It can be a terrifying time for parents. They need to provide enough responsibility for their young drivers to grow. They also know a mistake could be fatal. Teen Safe Driver can either help correct risky behavior or it can provide parents the peace of mind that the young driver is already acting responsibly.
You also have to acknowledge the cost factor. Adding a teenage driver can cause the parents’ insurance premiums to double in price. Further, if that young driver has at-fault accident, the premiums on the family car would go up another 30% or more. Teen Safe Driver builds or reinforces skills that help drivers to avoid accidents or tickets and that can save premium dollars over time. Teen Safe Drive presents an opportunity for American Family to differentiate ourselves in the teen driver market by providing an effective solution for the parents of young drivers. Regardless of whether the parents are motivated by cost or by safety, the end result is a heightened sense of value from the services provided by American Family Insurance.
American Family developed Teen Safe Driver in association with DriveCam Inc., a company that has used a similar technology in the commercial trucking industry. The program is offered at no cost to American Family customers who have a teenage driver for a period of up to one year. The technology is the brains of the operation but it’s not the heart. Parental involvement is an absolute must. Change in teen driving behavior will not happen unless parents are involved. Teen Safe Driver provides parents the tools and tips they need to help teach and motivate their teens to drive more safely.
Now that’s an important difference from other GPS-based vehicle monitoring systems that are offered by other insurers and auto manufacturers.
The Teen Safe Driver pilot program was introduced in three states in March 2007 and it expanded to our other 15 states later in the year and we do still consider the program to be in the ‘pilot’ phase as we gather more data.
Teen Safe Driver ships participants a camera that records sights and sounds inside and outside their vehicles. Local auto repair centers install the cameras in customer vehicles at no charge. Once installed, the in-vehicle video and audio camera captures risky driving behaviors such as swerving, hard braking, sudden acceleration and