*sobs* I penned a beautiful blog post and my computer crashed. Boo. I’m starting to think I’m the glitch and not Root or Allstate Drivewise. Anywho… welcome to the fifth day of my Root car insurance test drive. For those of you who are just joining us, I’m an average chick who lives in the Phoenix area. I’m an info junky, a bit of a tech geek, and want to save money on car insurance, so trying out the Root app was a no-brainer. I decided to share my experience as it’s happening. In the process of doing that, I discovered that my current car insurance company, Allstate, uses similar tech with its Drivewise program, so I’m running them both and doing a comparison. Here’s where I’m at so far. Root is GlitchyThe Root glitches have continued. I check my apps with OCD-like tenacity before and after each drive, so I can kind of sort of isolate when it hasn’t captured a trip because it pops up an error message. It behaves like I’ve changed my settings when I haven’t and then stops logging. I sent a message to Root customer service more than 48 hours ago and have not heard back. Allstate is GlitchyWhereas Root will not come back to life until I go into my settings, Allstate Drivewise has a mind of its own and logs intermittently. I never see errors since I enabled background app refresh for all apps, but sometimes it captures a whole trip, sometimes I get part of a trip, and sometimes I get none. Meh. Allstate Says I’m Guilty of Extreme Braking (And I’m Glad Root is Glitchy)Both apps track your braking habits. Root doesn’t tell you when you’ve screwed up, but it does have a sliding scale that indicates how you’re doing overall. Allstate Drivewise has an in-your-face map of each trip and adds a ginormous marker on the map when you mess up. My early morning trips were uneventful, but I had to run my kids out to their dad’s and he lives on the west side of Phoenix while I live in one of the suburbs east of it. It’s about an hour drive, depending on traffic, though I try to avoid rush hour when I can. For those familiar with the area, I was on the US 60 westbound where the two left lanes split off; one for the I-10 westbound carpool lane and another for the I-10 east. At the same time, the far right becomes an exit-only lane for Priest Drive, so you’ve got six lanes and four possible directions. People always mess up and wind up in the wrong lane, which makes this a particularly dangerous section because they’ll slam on their brakes or cut across several lanes at once. Also, the speed limit is 65mph, but most are going 75+. The moral of the story is, I got up to this split and the eastbound I-10 offramp was backed up about a half mile onto the 60, plus there was an accident in the left lane, as well as another accident a quarter mile up on the right. All this was at the tail-end of rush hour, or just after 7pm. Anyway, I had no way of knowing there were two accidents ahead, though I could see the backup start in the eastbound 10 exit. I reduced my speed some and had a safe distance between the car ahead of me and myself, but they slammed on their brakes, so I had to too. This was, apparently, a no-no in Allstate Drivewise’s book. Mind you, my phone sat on the passenger seat and didn’t move an inch, but it was enough that Allstate marked me down for an instance of “Extreme Braking.” There’s really no predicting this and it’s the nature of freeway driving, so it somewhat irks me that I’d get gigged for it, but whatever. I learned at my destination that Root had quit working, so it likely missed the issue, which… you know… I’m actually cool with. From Allstate Drivewise: “Hard braking events are defined as slowing down 8-10mph in one second. Extreme braking events are defined as slowing down >10mph in one second.” Root Doesn’t Care if I Use the Phone while DrivingDropping off my kiddos didn’t go great. The youngest was in tears and wanted to go back home with me, but also wanted to stay there for activities. In any case, it was a long, emotional farewell. As I got back on the freeway, my son called me via Facetime audio. I’ve been really mindful about using my phone in the car, but in this case, not answering was not an option, so I fell upon my sword, sabotaged my score, and picked up. We chatted for about ten minutes while I drove on the freeway. When he felt calm and good, we hung up. The cool news: It did not impact my score. Come Along on My Root Test Drive with MeI’ll be updating this blog as I continue my Root test drive and see if I can reduce my car insurance payments, so check back for updates.
I’m also going to be sharing the stories of others, so if you tried Root, Allstate Drivewise, or something similar, and you think the readers here could benefit from hearing how your experience went, click “Share Your Story” in the main menu.
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