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Earlier today, Travel Torque’s Melinda Ferguson attended the media launch of an innovative smartphone driving app by insurance company, Dialdirect, which aims to revolutionise the way South Africans drive on the roads.
It’s no secret that South African roads are far too often scenes of accident induced-carnage. Last year 14 071 people tragically lost their lives on local roads, mainly due to careless and negligent driving. In fact the Gauteng roads and transport departments recently estimated, that so far in 2017, 77.5% of fatal crashes and 89.1% of major road accidents, are as a result of “human factors”.
In what has been hailed as a “revolutionary insurance innovation” Dialdirect has come up with a clever cash-back incentive to encourage drivers to improve their driving. What makes it stand out is that it’s all monitored directly from your smartphone via an app and not a fitted device like other companies.
The Dialdirect app monitors driving habits aimed to transform both the way we drive and insure our cars.
For most of us paying insurance can often feel like a grudge purchase, according to Warwick Scott-Rodger, executive head of Dialdirect: “Now consumers have the opportunity to participate in their risk management and tangibly determine what they pay for insurance. In other words, do your thing, get back ching.”
So what’s the hidden catch? Amazingly there’s none.
In an age where insurance companies’ “fabulous offers” are far too often veiled by a whole lot of small print conditions, you don’t even have to be insured by Dialdirect to track your road habits. However there’s a highly attractive incentive for those who do insure through Dialdirect – whereby clients stand a chance of receiving an incredible 75% cash back incentive on monthly premiums. The only requirement to get back ching is to insure right and meet certain criteria by way of seven drive-score factors.
First on the list is cellphone driving, which causes at least 25 % of needless accidents on our roads. So if you’re one of those drivers who text and talk on your phone, forget about scoring anything besides a collision.
The other six high-risk driving factors are: braking too harshly or too suddenly; over acceleration; night-time driving after 10pm; of course the big baddie on the roads – speeding; driving in high-risk situations like traffic-congested conditions, and finally the length of distance you land up driving. On long journeys your score will improve by taking regular breaks.
The app is pretty user-friendly – you don’t have to be a geek or a techno fiend to get to grips with it. Simply download it from the Google Playstore or Apple iTunes, create your profile and start monitoring your driving.
The American stand-up comic George Carlin famously said: “Have you ever noticed that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot while anyone driving faster than you is a maniac?” Now there’s a “third” party – the Dialdirect app – to objectively decide. Safe driving.
• Ferguson is a brand advocate for Dialdirect
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