Road safety minister Mike Penning believes that alterations brought in by the Driving Standards Agency from 1 January to ensure theory tests now consist of questions which are not previously published, will result in young drivers being better prepared for their formative months behind the wheel.
It is also hoped that a combination of telematics technology and changes instigated by the Driving Standards Agency to make the theory test harder to pass will lead to lower premiums for new drivers.
Penning said: "Telematics has the potential to help drivers access more affordable insurance premiums, but we know this isn't the only solution."
Linden Holliday, CEO at MyDrive Solutions, the UK-based insurance telematics specialist, explains how telematics is in the early stages of development and in order to use the technology available, one second data logging, as opposed to the usual 30 second logging, is needed to provide an accurate view of driving behaviour, and therefore risk.
“The more widely adopted 30 second data logging is a rate of sampling that is too low to enable a true picture of a driver’s behaviour. Going down the 30 second logging, exception-based route will never lead to true understanding of individual driver behaviour. One second logging allows insurers to move away from the old proxies that have traditionally contributed to drivers being treated as averages, with all of the inherent weakness of that approach. Instead drivers can be treated as individuals and insurers can therefore truly understand the risk presented by each and every one of their drivers.”
“Even just having detailed data is not enough to put insurers ahead of the curve – it must be combined with an ability to translate that data into value to appreciate how each individual is performing in their vehicle – and this includes a requirement to map activity to the underlying road network and even to the view of a respected expert – such as ROSPA – as to what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘bad’ driving.”
“It is also of critical importance that driving behaviour is always contextualised in relation to the road network, and specifically, the time of driving and the location of the car (which itself allows the insurer to understand exactly what hazards (roundabouts, junctions, bends etc) the driver is negotiating, and with what level of competence. Only by the utilisation of GPS data and cross referencing to the map can this be done effectively.”
“Until the data is available and analysed in the context of the appropriate geography and accepted best practice, car insurance companies cannot possibly understand the risk presented by individual drivers.”
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