Monitoring Driving Habits: Using Bouncie to Promote Safe Driving

Sometimes, vehicular accidents are out of our control. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take proactive steps to stay safe on the road. How we drive directly correlates to safety, both for ourselves and everyone else. Whether you’re a parent of a teen driver, a fleet manager responsible for your company’s vehicles, or you’re concerned about your own road safety, there is something you can do: monitor driving habits.

Bad driving habits like hard braking, rapid acceleration, and speeding significantly increase the risk of accidents. But if you had a record of such driving incidents, including when and where they happened, you could address them. Simply being aware of these bad habits is often enough to correct them. Or, in a business context, fleet managers could use a record like this to coach drivers toward better safety. But what kind of driving behavior monitoring tool exists to provide all this data? Meet Bouncie, the GPS tracking device that promotes safe driving.

With Bouncie, gone are the days when improving driving habits relied solely on intuition or infrequent feedback. Bouncie empowers businesses, parents, and other individuals with real-time driving behavior data. And once you know about potential safety risks, you can take action to improve road safety. Here’s how monitoring driving habits with Bouncie promotes safe driving.

What Is Driving Behavior Monitoring?

One of Bouncie’s key features is driving behavior monitoring, which tracks and analyzes how a driver operates a vehicle. Driving behavior monitoring utilizes multiple sensors and other technology to gather data on driving actions and patterns. It’s this data that creates the connection between vehicle tracking and safety. Some of the metrics typically tracked include:

• Rapid acceleration, which often involves unnecessarily increasing the vehicle’s speed.
• Speeding, if the vehicle’s computer reports speed to the tracking device.
• Hard braking, the act of applying the brakes suddenly and forcefully.
• Excessive idling, or leaving the engine running while the vehicle is stationary for longer periods.
• Trip duration provides context to the driving habits.

The Impact of Bad Driving Habits

While no one drives perfectly all the time, bad driving habits have huge risks in the long term. Speeding, rapid acceleration, and hard braking are all common causes of accidents. Beyond safety concerns, bad habits have other negative impacts. For example, rapid acceleration and harsh braking consume significantly more fuel than smooth, gradual maneuvers. If fuel efficiency is a concern for you or your business, it’s worth addressing these driving habits.

Then, there’s the long-term effect on vehicle maintenance. Harsh driving habits put undue stress on vehicle components. Over time, this leads to premature wear on a vehicle's tires, brakes, and engine. Adopting better driving habits extends a vehicle’s lifespan and reduces long-term maintenance costs.

How Bouncie Tracks Driving Behavior

The first step toward improved safety and reduced costs is finding a tracker that monitors driving behavior and gives you the data you need. Bouncie stands out from the competition for its simple installation process, detailed driving data, and other features. Here’s a look at how Bouncie tracks driving behavior and makes it easy to access its data.

Bouncie: A Smart OBD-II Device

Bouncie is technically a GPS tracker, but it’s really a smart device on par with other innovative, internet-connected products. Bounce plugs directly into a vehicle’s OBD-II port. OBD stands for On-Board Diagnostics, and the OBD-II version has been the standard for cars manufactured since 1996. 

The OBD-II port powers the Bouncie device and provides it with a wealth of data directly from the vehicle’s onboard computer systems and internal sensors. This data is then securely transmitted to Bouncie’s servers, where you can access the information with the companion Bouncie app. This combination of ease of installation and powerful capabilities is why Bouncie is the safe driving tracker of choice for both businesses and individuals.

Recording Trip Data

Once plugged into an OBD-II port, Bouncie automatically begins recording data whenever a vehicle is in motion. Utilizing GPS and vehicle data, Bouncie accurately tracks the route, distance, and speed.

Bouncie tracks speed changes to identify rapid acceleration and hard braking, which are common signs of inefficient driving behavior. It also records engine idling time to show when fuel is wasted while the vehicle remains stationary.

Behavior Alerts

Bouncie can also send alerts based on the driving behavior it monitors. You can receive these alerts just like other notifications on your smartphone or other internet-connected device. Bouncie’s behavior alerts ensure fleet managers, parents, or individuals know instantly about speeding, rapid acceleration, harsh braking, and other events.

Best of all, you can set thresholds for alerts. After all, you may not want notifications if a vehicle goes a few miles per hour over the speed limit, or alerts about the occasional harsh braking event. Predefined thresholds give you control over the information you want, making Bouncie a versatile GPS driving behavior tool for both business and personal use.

Real-Time vs. Historical Insights

Some GPS trackers, typically inexpensive battery-powered units, don’t transmit GPS tracking data in real time. Instead, they record information to internal storage. You can access the recorded data later by plugging the device into a computer. While there is a lot of value to real-time data, you can also analyze historical data for insights into driving behavior.

Bouncie provides the best of both worlds by providing both real-time and historical insights into driving behavior. Bouncie’s real-time capabilities mean you get alerts as soon as possible, allowing you to address driver behavior in the moment. However, Bouncie’s historical data allows you to review driving history over days, weeks, or months. The historical view is a great way to review trends in driving habits and track improvements over time.

Bouncie: The Driving Behavior Monitoring Solution for Everyone

Many GPS tracking solutions are designed for specific markets. Some target large fleets or small businesses, while others are geared toward families or individuals. Bouncie, however, is versatile enough to be the solution for everyone. Consider Bouncie’s benefits in these different contexts:

Benefits for Families and Individual Drivers

It’s normal for anxiety levels to be high in households with newly licensed teen drivers. Bouncie offers parents peace of mind, monitoring speed, hard braking, and other driving behaviors. By utilizing Bouncie’s data, families can identify areas of concern and help develop safe driving practices.

Bouncie’s real-time alerts and historical data can help families of new or elderly drivers build safer habits over time. Families can help these drivers become more aware of their actions behind the wheel with objective data. The focus changes from scolding drivers over specific incidents to fostering long-term improvements. By removing subjectivity, Bouncie makes these difficult conversations about responsible driving easier. 

Applications for Fleet Managers and Businesses:

Businesses that operate a fleet of vehicles can use Bouncie’s powerful data to improve overall fleet safety and reduce risk. Managers can monitor their entire fleet's driving behaviors to identify drivers engaging in risky behaviors. Bouncie thus provides opportunities for targeted training and coaching. Using this data, businesses can foster a company culture of road safety.

Fleet managers can even use Bouncie’s driving data to create objective driver goals. Not only can the goals create a friendly competition for the title of safest driver, but they can also be used as an objective metric in performance evaluations. Company leaders can reward performance to improve company morale. Drivers who consistently demonstrate safe and efficient driving habits can receive bonuses, public recognition, or other incentives appropriate for your organization.

Maximizing Bouncie’s Driving Behavior Monitoring Features

The Bouncie platform works so well for both businesses and individuals because it's inherently flexible. The easy-to-use Bouncie app or web portal can provide as much data as you want, and you can configure the system to your preferences. Here are a few tips for getting the most out of Bouncie’s driving behavior monitoring features.

Setting Customization and Alert Preferences

Setting the thresholds that trigger alerts is one of the best ways to customize Bouncie for your specific needs. For example, parents might set a particular speed limit for their teen driver, and any instance of exceeding that limit would generate an alert. However, these settings will likely be too much for a fleet manager.

Similarly, you can customize Bouncie’s alert settings. Delivery options include push notifications on your smartphone, email, or in-app messages. You can also choose how often you receive alerts. Fleet managers responsible for many vehicles could see their phones overwhelmed with notifications without choosing how and when they receive alerts. On the other hand, parents of one teen driver might want instant notifications.

For families with multiple vehicles or a fleet manager, Bouncie supports driver profiles for per-driver or per-vehicle alerts.  This granular control ensures that the right people receive the information they need for each vehicle or driver. For instance, a fleet manager can set specific alert parameters for different types of vehicles or drivers with varying levels of experience.

Tips for Safety Education and Engagement

Bouncie offers a vast amount of driving data, and sharing it in the right context is important. To successfully use it as a tool for safety education and engagement, remember that Bouncie data is an educational tool, not a punishment. For families, this means approaching discussions about driving behavior with a focus on safety instead of criticism.

For fleet managers, the data should be used to identify areas where drivers can enhance their skills and safety awareness, emphasizing coaching and support.

When discussing Bouncie data, try to stay objective. Point to specific instances of speeding or hard braking as starting points for a conversation about the potential risks and safer alternatives. Families and businesses alike often get the most out of Bouncie by integrating with other safety programs. For example, some insurance providers offer discounts or incentives for drivers who can demonstrate safe driving habits tracked by devices like Bouncie. Businesses might be able to negotiate more favorable deals with customers by sharing their driving behavior data.

Discover the Value of Driving Behavior Monitoring With Bouncie

Driving behavior monitoring is quickly becoming a popular tool in homes and businesses everywhere. It’s easy to see why, as driver behavior significantly improves once it’s introduced. For enhanced safety, accountability, and peace of mind, you only need to find the right GPS tracking device for your monitoring needs.

Bouncie is the only GPS smart device suitable for both individual and commercial uses. Whether you need to monitor teen driving habits or fleet driver safety, Bouncie is a simple yet powerful tool that makes driver behavior monitoring easy. To start monitoring safer driving today, visit the Bouncie website.

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