From British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador, 582 Canadian residents signed up for the Canada’s Safest Driver contest, which ran October 1 to November 26, 2020.
Despite varying national surveys in previous years that have found BC drivers to be numbered among Canada’s worst, two residents of the province, David Wakulich from Victoria and Timothy Schewe from Nanoose Bay, garnered second and third place, respectively, in Canada’s Safest Driver Contest.
Contest participants downloaded the Canada’s Safest Driver telematics app, developed by smartphone telematics provider Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), which tracked five indicators of safe and responsible driving: speed, braking, acceleration, cornering and phone distraction.
CMT’s analysis of participant scores revealed that, for the first half of the contest, drivers overall improved their driving behaviours from a baseline calculated from their initial three days of tracking, but the majority returned to their old habits by contest end, notably in the measures of aggressive driving (speeding and acceleration) as well as phone distraction.
Key findings during the contest period:
- Safe driving takes vigilance:During the first few days, risk factors were reduced by 13 per cent, but by day 28 this dropped to three per cent. By day 56, participants returned to pre-contest risk levels.
- It can be done:Encouragingly, the bottom 25 per cent of users showed sustained improvement, with a 30-per-cent decrease in risky behaviours by day 56.
- Riskiest behaviours:Speeding and harsh acceleration were the biggest risks during the contest with an 11-per-cent and six-per-cent increase, respectively. Phone distractions saw a 30-per-cent decrease during the beginning of the contest but ended with a five-per-cent increase by day 56.
- A positive exception was for the highest-risk drivers who scored in the bottom 25 per cent, they showed significant driving behaviour improvements for the duration of the contest with an overall 30 per cent decreasein risky driving behaviour.
Julian Piccioli of Ottawa, ON won the grand prize of $10,000 for achieving the highest overall score. Piccioli also won a $500 prize for the driver who scores highest on the “smooth braking” criteria, as measured from November 12 to November 26 and the $500 Early Bird Prize for highest overall score in the contest’s first two weeks.
David Wakulich of Victoria B.C. won the second prize of $5,000 for second-highest overall score and Timothy Schewe from Nanoose Bay, B.C. won the third prize of $2,000.
View videos of the top prize winners:
Grand Prize Winner Julian Piccioli
Second Prize Winner David Wakulich
Third Prize Winner Timothy Schewe