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Play driving games to reduce car insurance?

October 10th, 2008 (Visited 1776 times) Tags: theory of fun

Could playing computer games enhance mental agility enough to turn people over 50 into better drivers? Allstate Corp. wants to find out, and if the answer is yes, it might offer insurance discounts to people who play the games.

Alas,I am not old enough to qualify. But it sure seems like a classic application of my theory of fun.

PsycPORT.com | Testing whether computer games can improve driving.

(Via Morgan).

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6 Responses to “Play driving games to reduce car insurance?”

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Vargen said on October 10th, 2008 at 7:26 pm:
I think there might be something to this.

Back in August I was nearly killed by a truck — traffic was stopped ahead and he was moving too fast to stop in time. Fortunately I saw him coming and was able to almost but not quite get out of the way. I credit years of playing video games for giving me the reaction time and spacial awareness I needed to escape with just a bit of a dent rather than having the entire left side of my car crushed.

It’s interesting to see insurance companies explicitly investigating this sort of thing.
Dave Rickey said on October 11th, 2008 at 2:12 am:
FWIW, I credit the early 90’s arcade game Hard Driving with my survival of two car accidents. Having hard-wired the reflexes for high-speed maneuvers you’d never deliberately try in a real car, I was able to turn situations that should have been deadly into something survivable (although just barely, in one case).

–Dave
Amaranthar said on October 11th, 2008 at 10:51 am:
I agree. My own first hand experiances I credit more to having played sports, but I think it’s the same thing here. Reaction times, awareness skills, etc.
I think a game with realistic dynamics is a huge bonus. Knowing how a car slides and what happens when you turn the wheel while out of control, these are huge factors.

And I hate auto locking brakes just for this reason. It takes control away from me in case I need it. I had to play that extra game with those damn things once to save my skin. Fortunately, I understood how to handle it, or I’d be posting this from the grave. Which is yet another reason why this is a very good idea.
Morgan Ramsay said on October 11th, 2008 at 4:13 pm:
Posit Science is the developer of these “driving” games. This is important:

The games are not all specific to driving. [Emphasis added.] They’re designed to reverse age-related cognitive decline and improve visual alertness. For example, a game called “Jewel Diver” has players keep track of underwater jewels that pop up on the screen for a moment before they are hidden under fish swimming around. When the fish stop moving, players click on the fish hiding the jewel. It’s like Three Card Monte but without the cheating. Over time, the game gets more complicated as more fish appear on the screen.

From one of their recent press releases:

The Posit Science software has been shown in more than a dozen National Institutes of Health funded studies to improve visual processing skills known to be important for safe driving. The technology has been shown to reduce dangerous driving maneuvers by up to 40% and improve stopping distance by an average of 22 feet when traveling at 55 miles per hour. In fact, scientific studies have demonstrated that training can reduce crash risk by up to 50%. Allstate’s roll out is intended to evaluate interest in and effectiveness of this approach to improving driving performance.

So, apparently, Allstate isn’t testing whether playing games will reduce insurable risks but whether their drivers would be interested in playing games to reduce their insurance costs. 100,000 drivers in Pennsylvania, 50 years and older, will be part of the pilot program. (Are there many gamers in… Pennsylvania? I think older drivers might be more willing to try this program out if they had kids who played or plays games.)
Amaranthar said on October 12th, 2008 at 7:19 am:
Morgan, I don’t see where you get that idea. I’m thinking your pulling something up from elsewhere that what you quoted, and that maybe you should have used words like “isn’t only” and “but also”? This seems to me to make sense. Even if the program works in the “lab”, it wouldn’t do any good at all if the clients aren’t willing to follow through by playing the games.

The article also stated:

“Allstate and Posit Science will launch the test of the InSight™ software program in Pennsylvania. Allstate will invite selected Pennsylvania drivers, 50 years and older to help validate the impact cognitive training has on driving safety.”

But of course people in Pennsylvania play games. Other than those Pittsburgh Stealers fans, the people there are the same species as the rest of us.
Morgan Ramsay said on October 12th, 2008 at 3:10 pm:
Amaranthar:

Morgan, I don’t see where you get that idea.

Read the press release quote again.

But of course people in Pennsylvania play games. Other than those Pittsburgh Stealers fans, the people there are the same species as the rest of us.

Species is irrelevant. Culture is what matters. Demographics plays a large part in the culture of a human society. I know the demographics of Pennsylvania, but anecdotally, Pennsylvania is reminiscent of Rancho Bernardo, which over here is a community largely dominated by retirees. I’m just saying that, hopefully, the culture is such in Pennsylvania that over-50 drivers are family-oriented in a way that they are often exposed to video games.

Not every family is like Raph’s where everyone plays (and designs!) games. The closest my over-50 parents come to video games are Freecell for my dad (who designed the first-ever computerized lottery system for the New York State Lottery) and watching-golf-on-TV for my mom (who is a former pro bowler and celebrity coach.)

Despite my having grown up in a household where my sister and I often played video games, starting with a pong console, I seriously doubt my parents would opt to participate in Allstate’s pilot program were the program offered here. Remember, we’re talking about Baby Boomers — people who would prefer that their mobile phones had bigger buttons, larger screens, and performed only basic I/O functions.