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HEY, YOU! — YEA, YOU! SEATTLE’S SAFEST DRIVER 2.0 (launches 5/13)

photo of woman with text: Are you Seattle's Safest Driver?

 

Think you’re Seattle’s safest driver? Prove it & win.

 

When it comes to traffic safety & moving toward Vision Zero, it’s about a culture change. It’s a shift from accepting accidents, to preventing crashes and making streets safer for everyone. This shift is going to take some big and small changes from public and private partners and from individuals like you – yea, you!

 

Seattle’s Safest Driver 2.0 launches on May 13, an app-based 8-week safe driving competition.

 

Get ready to download, play, and win in support of our Vision Zero efforts to end traffic deaths and serious injuries on city streets by 2030. All you have to do is head to the App Store or Google Play, download the free Seattle’s Safest Driver app, and drive (safely). Then invite everyone you know to compete.

 

We’re supportive of friendly smack talk in the name of safer streets, FYI.

 

 

Heads up! If you competed in our 2017/2018 competition (we heart you) and still have the app, you’ll need to get the latest version to be eligible for prizes. Once you download it, you can sign in as a returning user, or start fresh (with a different email address).

 

app screen images showing dashboard and trip summary

Using GPS and extensive math, the app tracks:

 

  • speeding,
  • harsh acceleration and braking, turning, and
  • phone distraction.

 

Be the best driver & you could win $5,000 – made possible by our partnership w/PEMCO Insurance.

 

You’ll compete for bi-weekly prizes, and if you join within the first four weeks of the competition (by June 9), you’ll be eligible to win the $5,000 grand prize, made possible by a continued partnership with PEMCO Insurance.

 

Yes, you read that right. $5,000 in cash money. Well, technically, we’ll hand you a giant fake check, then you’ll get a real check.

 

Exhibit A: here we are handing off a check to last year’s grand prize winner, Seattle resident Russell Lebert. Note last year’s grand prize amount. That’s right, this year’s grand prize is bigger (2.5 times bigger, to be exact). Sorry, Russell.

 

2018 Safest Driver winner being presented a giant check.

SDOT’s Allison Schwartz, Seattle’s Safest Driver 2018 Russell Lebert, and PEMCO’s Derek Wing are all smiles wrapping up a successful competition

 

It’s a regional competition! You don’t have to live in Seattle to compete!

 

This is a regional competition, open to residents of King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap counties, ages 17 and up. To be eligible for prizes, a portion of your drive trips must occur within the City of Seattle.

 

Don’t drive? This is a multi-modal competition!

 

The app also tracks transit and bike trips, and we’ll be offering bi-weekly prizes for folks in those categories as well. So, encourage your friends, family members, and co-workers to download the free app. You’ll be able to set up your own leaderboard to settle the age-old debate of who’s the better driver.

 

Turns out, the same technology that some folks are glued to (even while driving), when harnessed for good, can steer behavior the right direction.

 

We ran an initial contest in 2017/2018, engaging 4,000+ people in + behavior change.

 

Across the top 50% of users, we saw phone distraction drop 20% and speeding drop 16%. Distraction and speeding are two of the top contributing factors to crashes in most cities (up there with impairment and failure to yield to pedestrians), so we were excited to see these results.

 

summary of behavior change results

 

Perhaps even more exciting and impressive was what we saw with participants who began the app with a score of less than 90 (ahem, folks who had the most to gain in terms of behavior change). This group saw a 26% reduction in phone distraction and a 32% reduction in speeding, not just during the competition, but for 3 months after it as well. So, there were no prizes dangling in front of them, but they kept up the good work. Faith in humanity beginning to be restored.

 

With these positive results, we’re aiming to engage even more residents across the region in this safe driving competition.

 

 

Seattle may be one of the safest cities in the country but people are still driving distracted & speeding.

 

Seattle is one of the safest cities in the country. In fact, the company behind this app, Cambridge Mobile Telematics, has a city by city comparison and folks in the Seattle area beat out most of the other cities. But people are still driving distracted and speeding (among other things) – so there’s more we can and should do, and with your help, we can get there.

 

So, download, drive better & win.

 

Learn more at www.seattle.gov/safestdriver.

 

Special thank you to our primary sponsor, PEMCO Insurance, and our bi-weekly prize partners: car2go, Lyft, Uber, Lime, Zipcar, AAA Washington, Pacific Science Center, and Rachel’s Ginger Beer! Together, we’re making streets safer.

 

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