There have been 48 traffic fatalities in Hawaiʻi since the start of this year. That’s double the number the state had at this time in 2024.
DTRIC Insurance is trying to stop this exponential increase through its August Drive Aloha Safest Driver Challenge. This month-long competition awards cash prizes to the safest drivers in the state.
Wenli Lin, the chief marketing officer at DTRIC, manages the challenge and emphasized that there needs to be an immediate solution to making Hawaiʻi roads safer.
“We are encouraging drivers to be safer or more courteous on the road by driving with aloha. What we found is that a lot of the drivers don't know how they drive,” Lin said. “So for the third year, we are hosting the Drive Aloha challenge, and we're using the latest technology to create a statewide safe driving contest to help drivers become aware of how they drive so they can learn to be safer.”
Through the DriveWell Go app, drivers will be assessed on the following: speeding, phone distraction, rapid acceleration, harsh braking, hard cornering.
Each trip the driver completes will calculate an average score for that drive, showing the user the locations of each unsafe driving behavior, if they had any.
There have been concerns about the app invading users’ privacy, but Lin stated the insurance company does not own or sell the data collected. The data goes back to the app developer, Cambridge Mobile Telematics. Lin stated that it is safe to use, and that “the benefit outweighs any risk involved.”
Drivers can enter the competition through the end of the month and will still be eligible for the cash prize as long as they complete at least 30 trips and 150 miles. The three safest drivers will be given $2,500, $1,000 or $500 awards in early September.
