Driving Habits are Under Review
I am forced to spend more time thinking about safe driving. I do more navigation prep before getting in the car. I note that this program does not fit into the driving scene in large cities. The majority of traffic is moving at a higher speed that the posted numbers. My car moving at 5 mph above the limit is a hindrance to others in Chicago and Milwaukee. I am not safe in any lane. Even the far right lane is dangerous with others diving in last second trying to leave traffic. The ramp traffic is joining the local race in the merge area.
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Response from developer
We appreciate your feedback about MyamFam Drive App. We'll be sure to share your experience with our team. If you wish to send over additional details to be shared, please email us at drivemyway@amfam.com. Thank you!
Switching insurers
I kept track of my driving and overall score and the two scores don’t jive. This app is American Family’s attempt at scamming their customers out of more money. No one can answer a question about how the scoring is weighted or how it knows who is driving. I use my phone for GPS directions and it appears to count as distracted driving. Going under the speed limit, coming up to a stoplight that changes, stop as required by LAW - ding on the score. I drive in a city and already pay rates based on my location, which takes into account my risk of accident. This app would seem to prefer that I run lights and smash into cars. This app is my final straw with AmFam.
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Response from developer
Hi there. If you believe some of your information isn't properly populating into the MyAmFam Drive app, please email us at drivemyway@amfam.com and we can look into this for you. Thanks for reaching out!
Overall helpful but somewhat aggravating.
As an annoyingly honest person I find the app gives negative consequences in unavoidable circumstances where quick slowdowns are inevitable according to laws of traffic on highways, or for reacting to wildlife. Should I be penalized for hastily reducing my speed when surrounded by traffic traveling 65+ mph while approaching my driveway which is directly off of the 4 lane highway and does not have much of a deceleration lane? I was told in order for it not to count against me to say I was a passenger. Well, that does not seem like an appropriate allocation for the circumstance and therefore giving others who may not be quite as honest a way out. Also, it would skew the data. But perhaps the goal is to have people forget they are running the app and therefore collect all the data, where in this case it doesn’t always appropriately assign the role of driver so again data is skewed.
Overall, it’s fun to see my scores and I probably spend way too much time critiquing my driving and having a silent, one-sided, competition with my husband.
Overall, it’s fun to see my scores and I probably spend way too much time critiquing my driving and having a silent, one-sided, competition with my husband.
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Response from developer
Safe driving is important, and we're happy to hear you're finding the features to be helpful. Thanks for taking a moment to share your experience with us!
Hard braking needs work
Preferred the old app. Im not driving any different but this one is constantly dinging me for hard breaking and has a major impact on the average score. Even things that are not actually breaking is causing it to trigger a hard breaking event on the map.
A bit of hyperbole here but it seems unless I just let myself idle to a stop about a block before is the only way to get this to cooperate.
Also not sure how this thing is calculating scores as the math doesn’t seem to add up based on what it shows on the trends and dashboards.
A bit of hyperbole here but it seems unless I just let myself idle to a stop about a block before is the only way to get this to cooperate.
Also not sure how this thing is calculating scores as the math doesn’t seem to add up based on what it shows on the trends and dashboards.
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Response from developer
Hi there. Thanks for reaching out to us about your experience using our app. If you would like to learn more about what we're tracking when it comes to hard braking, please visit: https://amfam.ly/3Gl3J60 to learn more.
Am fam app
I still like this app. It does make me aware of my driving. The sensitivity of breaking is too sensitive. I find myself waiting and slowing later than I used to which puts me in closer proximity to other drivers than what I am comfortable with but that is the only way I can brake and not get notifications that I am stopping too fast. This app is good. If you are going to have an app I find it challenging. My awareness of my speed and being aware of my part is improved using it. I think the breaking is a bit on the sensitive side because I really don’t break hard yet the app signals that I do. The tracking is good though.
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Response from developer
We love hearing the app is helping you to feel safer behind the wheel. Keep up the great work! Thanks for taking a moment to share your experience with us.
Opened my eyes!
It’s going great! Was on the old app for 2 years and had a 10% discount. With the new one I’m heading for a 20% discount. My current score is 81 😀with over 6000 miles. I considered myself a good driver that made those quick decisions and maneuvers on the road. After using this app and actually paying attention to my driving, I realized I was taking small and unnecessary risks. Now I drive as smooth as silk.
I changed 3 things…started using a phone holder, follow 4 seconds behind other cars, and use cruise control to maintain my speed. My current streaks are 467 trips no phone use, 118 trips no speeding and 23 trips no hard brakes. I get about 1 hard brake a week, usually stopping for a yellow light or stopping at the bottom of a hill.
One aha I’ve had…by doing the speed limit I can hit the lights in town just right so I don’t have to stop. I do get passed by aggressive drivers but I always catch up to them at a light. Speeding really doesn’t save us time.
I changed 3 things…started using a phone holder, follow 4 seconds behind other cars, and use cruise control to maintain my speed. My current streaks are 467 trips no phone use, 118 trips no speeding and 23 trips no hard brakes. I get about 1 hard brake a week, usually stopping for a yellow light or stopping at the bottom of a hill.
One aha I’ve had…by doing the speed limit I can hit the lights in town just right so I don’t have to stop. I do get passed by aggressive drivers but I always catch up to them at a light. Speeding really doesn’t save us time.
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Response from developer
Thanks so much for sharing your positive feedback with us!
Experiences we’ve had so far
The only one that I feel is questionable is the hard braking. One time I had the green light to go through an intersection and another driver pulled out to my right to turn into my lane. If I wouldn’t have braked hard I could have had a collision. Another time I had the green light again and a vehicle coming towards me again turned into my lane which I needed to brake for. Both of these were from the other drivers not obeying the rules. We’ve also had a time where I was driving to a game in Florence and didn’t notice that the car had synched with my wife’s phone on the way back home so she got dinged for using her phone and being distracted when she wasn’t even driving. I thought the GPS could tell if the phone was on the drivers or passengers side. This happened at least twice for her when I was the driver. We have now tried to check each time whose phone is being synched to the car. I just thought that once it was synched up at the beginning of a trip it would stay there when I’m in the drivers seat.
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Response from developer
We appreciate the feedback! Using a GPS alone should not mark as a distraction. For a full list of the criteria we measure, please visit: https://amfam.ly/3Gl3J60. If you notice the app is marking distraction outside those parameters please reach out to us drivemyway@amfam.com and we can look into this further. Thank you.
Terrible app -
This app,although improved from previous app, misses the mark on what it calls “hard braking.” I keep getting dinged for this when I barely touch the break. For instance to disengage the cruise or normal breaking occurrences. Not too mention when getting cut off by a semi or braking for other drivers doing stupid maneuvers- one cannot avoid it. Just today I got only one star for hard braking because I needed to slow down for a stoplight that turned green on a highway that was 45 miles per hour. I would have had time to run the yellow light but instead slowed down to stop at the red light. The hard braking does not accurately represent your safety as a driver. This is the only thing I’m getting “dinged” on. I am in fact being a much better driver by braking in the events I am being dinged on. I believe American family uses this to lower your overall score so they can claim it justifies lowering your discount. My frustration is epic.
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Response from developer
We appreciate your feedback about MyAmFam Drive app. We'll be sure to share your experience with our team. If you wish to send over additional details to be shared, please email us at drivemyway@amfam.com. Thank you!
Better than the old one and good overall
This app is definitely better. They have been good about updating incorrect speed limit maps if you message them. It does still glitch and show me going 100mph when I’m going 60. App support says it is my phone, but since the corporate default answer is to blame someone else, it is hard to tell.
The best way to save money with this AmFam program is if you drive an unnamed perfect amount. For example, you can get 100% on all 3 visible metrics, but still average much lower overall. So don’t drive too much or too little, definitely don’t stop for improperly timed or marked stoplights, and have your phone secured because if it shifts around at all, you get dinged for a distraction.
That being said, I hope all insurance companies switch to this method. It will make people pay extra to drive aggressively which should encourage people to drive better. Then again, $5/gallon gas doesn’t seem to stop people from excessively speeding and flooring it in their pickup trucks and SUVs everywhere. So who knows?
The best way to save money with this AmFam program is if you drive an unnamed perfect amount. For example, you can get 100% on all 3 visible metrics, but still average much lower overall. So don’t drive too much or too little, definitely don’t stop for improperly timed or marked stoplights, and have your phone secured because if it shifts around at all, you get dinged for a distraction.
That being said, I hope all insurance companies switch to this method. It will make people pay extra to drive aggressively which should encourage people to drive better. Then again, $5/gallon gas doesn’t seem to stop people from excessively speeding and flooring it in their pickup trucks and SUVs everywhere. So who knows?
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Response from developer
MyAmFam Drive app was created with people like you in mind! Thanks being our customer and letting us know you're enjoying the app. Your feedback means a lot to us!
Just Terrible
This app is horrible. I’ve had to contact them six times in the last three days because they dinged me for speeding when their speed limit was wrong or they dinged me for distracted driving when I didn’t even touch my phone. And then when they respond, it’s the same automated message telling me what constitutes distracted driving and if the speed limit is wrong, just change the drive from driver to passenger. I would have thought more testing would have been done, but guess not. All American Family is looking for is how they can make their customer pay more for their insurance. I agree with some of the other viewers that the app is skewed in the favor of American Family. This app should be suspended until ALL the bugs are fixed. And developer, please don’t respond with another automated message thanking me for my feedback and telling me where I can look for more information!
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Response from developer
We appreciate your feedback about MyAmFam Drive app. We'll be sure to share your experience with our team. If you wish to send over additional details to be shared, please email us at drivemyway@amfam.com. Thank you!
