Behavior change behind the wheel? There’s an app for that.
After 8-weeks of friendly competition, the chance to win $5,000, and the goal of improving safety on our streets, we’re excited to announce the winner of Seattle’s Safest Driver 2.0!
SDOT’s Allison Schwartz (left), Seattle’s Safest Driver winner Scott Hogan (middle), and PEMCO’s Derek Wing (right), after Hogan was handed the grand prize check.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner $5,000 check
Let’s give it up for Seattle resident, Scott Hogan, a professional semi-truck driver who, in his 24-year career, has driven 3 million crash-free miles. Via Seattle’s Safest Driver, Scott logged 1,800 miles and a perfect score in the last 4 weeks of the competition. Some seriously impressive performances. To top it off, as part of his job, Scott has been hauling away bits and pieces of the viaduct, taking part in the exciting transformation happening down on the waterfront.
Here’s what Scott had to say about his experience:
Seattle’s Safest Driver was a great contest and I’m thrilled to be this year’s winner! It brought me back to my roots and memories of my father and grandfather teaching me to drive. It also reminded me to plan ahead. Don’t put yourself in a position to be late. When you’re late you make bad decisions and take chances that are not worth it.
In classic competition style, we handed over one of those super fun novelty checks, alongside our prime sponsor, PEMCO Mutual Insurance. They’ve teamed up with us for the past two years on this, sharing our vision for safer streets, and we’re so grateful for their partnership.
PEMCO CEO Stan McNaughton, Seattle’s Safest Driver winner Scott Hogan, SDOT’s Allison Schwartz, and PEMCO’s Derek Wing standing with the grand prize check.
Results! 
Scott was one of more than 2,100 people to download the app. It measured speeding, phone distraction, harsh braking and acceleration, and sharp turns. After each drive, you get a score (out of 100 points) and feedback on how to improve.
Across the competition and all participants
- Overall risky behavior down 25%
- Speeding down 45%
- Phone distraction down 9%
Even greater gains among top 25% of participants (score of 95+)
- Speeding down 55%
- Phone distraction down 15%
Maybe you’ve heard us say this before, but speeding and distraction are two of the top causes of crashes, so to see this level of improvement is exciting and impressive. This builds on our successful inaugural competition that resulted in positive and sustained behavior change.
Teamwork makes the dream work
In addition to our primary sponsor, PEMCO, high fives go to Zipcar, Lime, car2go, Lyft, Uber, AAA Washington, Pacific Science Center, and Rachel’s Ginger Beer – these companies pitched in to provide bi-weekly prizes to people biking, riding transit, and for the least distracted and safest drivers throughout the competition.
A big thank you to Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), the company whose award-winning technology and DriveWell platform powered Seattle’s Safest Driver 1.0 and 2.0, and similar competitions across the country.
And of course, thank you to all of our participants, for taking part in this competition and being open to change. Throughout the competition, we received feedback from people – people who drive, people who bike and take transit – they let us know that the app was truly helping them think more about decisions they make while traveling on city streets.
And that’s really heartening, because while Seattle’s Safest Driver and Vision Zero are data-driven efforts, they’re also very much human-centered efforts. Hearing people’s experiences reminds us of that, of how important this work is, and how we each have a role to play.
The long haul
Behavior change takes time. And it’s really what we’re after in the context of Vision Zero. We center our efforts on engineering changes, aiming to design a safer system. Efforts like Seattle’s Safest Driver can complement that work, creating awareness and producing measurable results. It’s going to continue to take a multifaceted approach.
Yes, we have a ways to go to get to zero, no doubt. But it’s inspiring to see people change, become more aware, and contribute to a safer city. We’ll need the continued partnership of public agencies, private companies, and individuals working together toward a shared vision for safer streets to make it happen.
Learn more about Seattle’s Safest Driver and Vision Zero.