Signal® by Farmers‪®‬ 4+

I think the Signal® safe driving app is fantastic and very easy to use. Once it is set up, you don’t really need to do anything for it to work. It just runs in the background on your smart phone the way any other app does and it logs your driving habits. If you are on your phone and are the passenger and the app incorrectly categorizes that trip as you being the driver, you can go in and edit that trip to show that you were actually the passenger. Also, for those people that ride motorcycles, it will often not count the trip as it shows that you were not in a vehicle, but in my case, as I am a safe rider I go into the app and change those trips to drivers status so that I can receive credit for them. It’s very easy to maintain 100% of the trips with no distractions. You simply just leave your phone in your pocket or your purse or in the glove box or even just sitting on the seat next to you or in your console and it will not record you as being a distracted driver. The savings start at 10% and go up from there depending on how many people in the household use the app and what ages they are. Highly recommended!

The app frequently claims I have had many Hands-free phone usages when I haven’t had any. I have exchanged many emails with Farmers and the rep says they’re working on fixes. Meanwhile I just tell the app either I was a passenger or I wasn’t in a car. I told Farmers in emails I would be doing this. Supposedly I’m getting a 12.5% discount so I suppose it’s worth the fairly minor aggravation. I’m also not playing with my phone while driving and am more careful about my driving otherwise. The Signal app now says I have a 6.5% discount rather than 12%. Farmers hasn’t responded to three separate requests for an explanation! (Farmers finally responded when I sent messages to my agent directly and to Farmers on its website.) Out of the last 68 trips, the app incorrectly indicated that I used the hands free phone 14 times! Farmers keeps telling me that occasional errors won’t have much effect on my discount but I think these errors are problematic.

As indicated above, the app used to falsely claim I was using hands-free calling which I never did. Now it simply claims there was Distracted Driving” with no indication what actually happened so I trust the app at all.

The app also recently indicated I wasn’t the driver for a trip when I actually was!

I love the app and the discounts provided.
However, my small complaint is that: when I go fishing, some of the roads I must drive on aren’t exactly smooth. So my phone sometimes slides a few inches in the console. The app registers that I used the phone while the car is in motion. This can ruin my focused driving count.

As a retired OTR truck driver, and after reading other reviews, I am actually glad I didn’t start using Signal until after I retired.
Dings for “time of day” driving would have ticked me off, as an OTR driver doesn’t have a set, specific time of day, every day that he/she starts driving.
And there are systems on trucks now that may automatically apply the brakes according to set parameters in the vehicle’s computer system (set by companies who own the vehicle).
And, since it is, by definition, a work vehicle, not insured by the driver’s policy, this could ruin the driver’s record with Signal/ Farmers.
Also, most of the millions of truck drivers use Bluetooth tech in conjunction with their phones. Yet another thing that would negatively impact his/her Signal record.

Basically, the only way to avoid all the dings,etc, would be to have 2 phones and wrap the phone with Signal installed in a pillow or a piece of foam rubber to prevent any hard jolts to it.
OR, not use Signal at all