Background 

The City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office of New Urban 

Mechanics (MONUM) championed the inaugural 

“Safest Driver Contest.1

” As a partnership between 

the Vision Zero Task Force, MONUM, and the 

Transportation Department, the Safest Driver 

Contest held its first season in 2016 and a second 

season in 2019. Similar contests have been held 

in other cities including Seattle, San Antonio, and 

Los Angeles.

The contest aimed to change driver behavior 

by offering incentives to participants who 

adopted safe practices while behind the wheel. 

Participants downloaded an app that used 

five performance evaluation metrics to assess 

each driver including braking, acceleration, 

speeding, cornering, and distraction. The app 

made calculations for these metrics based on 

the phone’s GPS, accelerometer, and gyroscope. 

The app collected and stored the monitored 

behaviors of individual drivers for each trip.

Contest Details

Season 1 (2016): The first season of Boston’s 

Safest Driver Contest occurred from October 3, 

2016 to December 3, 2016 and included nearly 

5,000 participants. The app assessed and 

ranked the drivers by their overall safety scores. 

Weekly prizes included the top three drivers of 

the week and the most improved driver.

1 https://www.boston.gov/departments/new-urban-mechanics/

bostons-safest-driver-competition

Key Successes

Two seasons of the Boston “Safest DRiver 

Contest” yielded the following results. During 

the first season, the top 25% of drivers 

showed: 

47% -reduction in distraction.

37% -reduction in harsh braking.

35% -reduction in speeding. 

During the second season, 35 days after 

registration, participants showed:

48% -reduction in distraction.

57% -reduction in harsh braking.

38% -reduction in speeding. 

Safest Driver Contest — Boston, Massachusetts

VISION ZERO SUCCESS STORY — BEHAVIORAL

APRIL 2020 | FHWA-SA-20-006

Mayor Martin J. Walsh commented, 

“I’m proud of our winners and their contribution 

to make our streets safer. The City of Boston 

is committed to ensuring our streets work for 

everyone, and by investing in programs such 

as Boston’s Safest Driver, we will continue to 

emphasize the importance of safe streets, and 

safe driving habits.”

There was positive public response to the 

contest. “Interest in the contest was contagious,” 

said the 2019 Slow and Steady Driver prize 

winner Jenn Brandel. “Once my family and 

friends learned about the competition, they started 

trying to outdo each other and get higher scores. 

While I’m bracing myself for jokes about being the 

Slow and Steady winner, I’ve learned to become a 

more patient and careful driver.”

FHWA is pleased to present this vision zero success story. While behavioral initiatives don’t typically fall under 

FHWA’s purview, they play a critical role in reaching our goal of zero deaths, and our part of our shared 

responsibility to reduce fatal or serious injuries. For more information on safe driving behaviors, please visit our 

partner agency, the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) at: https://www.nhtsa.gov/road-safety.
Driver behaviors that were monitored were:

• Braking – Harsh or abrupt braking.

• Acceleration – How quickly the vehicle 

accelerates. 

• Speeding – Based on a variable speed in 

excess of the speed limit and by road type. 

• Cornering – Based on the infrastructure and 

how the vehicle maneuvered around the 

existing roadway facilities.

• Distraction – Measured by smartphone sensors 

and evaluated based on the screen state, the 

speed of the vehicle (greater than 10 mph), 

phone position (held or fixed), and screen 

interaction.

A “Car-Free” trip award was also included in 

the first season to promote mode shift from a 

single occupancy vehicle to other modes of 

transportation.

The City awarded $4,500 to the top four winners 

and distributed approximately $4,500 in 

additional weekly prizes. 

Season 2 (2019): The second season of Boston’s 

Safest Driver Contest occurred between May 

6, 2019 to July 28, 2019 and included over 

2,000 participants. In addition to the individual 

resident challenge, the second contest included 

a corporate challenge with participating 

Transportation Management Associations. The 

prize categories for the second round included:

• Safest City of Boston Driver

• Safest Boston Metro Driver

• Least Distracted Driver

• Slow and Steady Driver

• Corporate Challenge Safest Driver

• Safest Workplace of Drivers

• Workplace with Most Non-driving Trips 

The City awarded $25,000 in prizes, including four 

grand prizes totaling $16,000 and biweekly prizes 

of $50. 

Funding 

The Arbella Insurance Foundation sponsored the 

2016 competition. Liberty Mutual Insurance and a 

National Safety Council Road to Zero Safe System 

Innovation Grant (funded by NHTSA) sponsored 

the 2019 competition. 

POINT OF CONTACT

YIFAN LU

MAYOR’S OFFICE OF NEW URBAN MECHANICS

617.635.0055| YIFAN.LU@BOSTON.GOV

Figure 1. Graphic. Boston Safest Driver 

competition dashboard page.

Figure 2. Graphic. Boston scoring dashboard.

© 2019 City of Boston. © 2019 City of Boston.