An insurance executive explains how collecting driving data could make us all safer

Business Insider

Arity collects driving data

• Business Insider interviewed Arity President Gary Hallgren in San Francisco at IGNITION: Transportation.
• Arity collects data about driving and insurance claims.
• With billions of miles of driving data plus thousands of claims, Arity claims it can "identify and quantify risky driving unlike anybody else."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Data is a vital component to creating safer cars and roads - whether or not humans are driving the cars.

So said Gary Hallgren, the president of AllState insurance's analytics-focused spinoff Arity in an interview with Business Insider senior tech editor Matt Weinberger.

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Speaking at IGNITION: Transportation on Tuesday, Hallgren discussed the importance of collecting and analyzing information about how human drivers interact with other drivers, as well as how humans interact with self-driving cars.

Arity began as part of AllState insurance, which Hallgren called a "gift," because of the access it had to so much driving data. The company collects information like speed, acceleration, barometers, as well as data from your phone, like how often you looked at it and how fast you were going at the time.

With this data plus insurance claims, Hallgren says Arity can "identify and quantify risky driving unlike anybody else," accurately predicting what kind of driving will cause accidents, and how much they will cost.

Hallgren sees future uses of this data to make autonomous driving safer. Now, the company has data on how humans interact with other humans while driving, but he hopes to build data on how humans interact with self-driving cars, and how vehicles interact with each other, which could be used to make those vehicles safer and prevent accidents and deaths.

Business Insider

Arity collects driving data

Hallgren said that Arity plans to "go where the data is and grow." The company is already working to bring its analytics to other apps, like family tracker Life360. Hallgren talked about how safety data could help you know if your Lyft driver is a safe driver, and eventually be useful as we move away from personal car ownership.