‘Intrusive’ Motability app is ‘worse than having a computer virus’

An “absolutely awful” mobile phone app that helps the Motability scheme monitor the driving behaviour of increasing numbers of disabled people is securing overwhelmingly poor reviews from its customers.

The Drive Smart scheme, which launched last August, allows Motability Operations to record how well the vehicle is being driven, how far, and how often.

But the scheme has attracted a flood of criticism in recent weeks, including concerns raised with Disability News Service (DNS) by disabled actor Keron Day.

This week, other disabled drivers have raised their concerns with DNS (see separate story).

One of them has pointed to reviews of the mobile phone app, which most of those signed up to Drive Smart have to use.

All but a small handful of the reviews posted on the Google app store website so far have been critical and have led to apologies from Motability and suggestions to contact its Drive Smart team with their concerns.

Motability describes the system as “a simple way to encourage mindful driving and make the roads safer for everyone”.

But one driver said the app was “worse than having spyware on your phone” and that he had “had computer viruses that are less intrusive”.

Another customer said the app had apparently tracked her location rather than her car’s, as it recorded a five-mile journey when she was a passenger in another car, while her own car was parked outside her home.

Several reviewers said the experience of using the app had increased their stress or anxiety levels.

Others accused the app of being unpredictable in how it scored driving behaviour, of only recording some of their journeys, and of draining their mobile phone’s battery, while some raised concerns about how their data was being used by Motability.

Other reviewers described the app as “a joke”, “atrocious”, “intrusive”, “rubbish”, “incredibly inconsistent”, and a “huge invasion of privacy”, while many reviews reported problems in setting up their Drive Smart account.

Users said they had been reported as speeding when they were stuck in a traffic jam, or for using their phone while driving when it rang even though they had not answered it.

One said the app “will make you dread every journey you go on as it will mark you down at every little road event that happens, even if something happens out of your control”.

Another reviewer said: “Even when I’ve turned the car off and then sit and look at my phone it counts it as distracted driving!”

One driver said they had stopped at a drive-through coffee shop to pay and had been marked down for using their phone to pay for their purchase.

An older woman who had been too unwell to install the app said she received an email from Motability to warn her that her car would be taken away from her if she did not install it that day.

And another user said Motability was “sending threatening texts to me to install this app” even though they had told them their phone was not compatible with the app.

Motability said in one response to a review that the app had been “designed to encourage mindful driving and help make roads safer for everyone”, and that it only used the “data required to assess driving safety and for legal purposes”, while it was “continually improving the app”.

Another Motability response said the app’s scoring system was “data-led and well established” and that it was “continually working to improve it so it’s as accurate and reflective of driving safety as possible”.

It also said its supplier was “continually refining the algorithm to keep scores as accurate and fair as possible”.

A Motability Operations spokesperson told DNS this week that Drive Smart had been introduced in response to an increase in insurance claims and “focuses on how someone actually drives, rather than relying on indirect measures of risk like postcodes” and would “support and reward safer driving”.

She said early data suggested that customers using Drive Smart were having 18 per cent fewer accidents.

She said: “We’re listening closely to what our customers are telling us as we continue to review and refine how Drive Smart works.

“In particular, we know usage is one of the biggest areas of feedback.

“We are actively reviewing how it is reflected in scores to help reduce some of the concerns customers are feeling.

“High usage will not impact a lease, because we know how important the scheme is for supporting customers with freedom and independence.

“We also recognise that many of our customers have different driving needs, including those who use adaptations, and we are developing the model to better reflect this.

“As part of this, we are building the first driving score derived from real world data from cars with adaptations, helping to strengthen fairness and creating an opportunity to work with customers to identify potential improvements to their adaptations.”

She said the company was reviewing its Drive Smart data to “understand whether any patterns could be attributed to disability, such as adapted cars, which could result in a reasonable adjustment for those customers”.

She encouraged any customers with concerns about their scores to contact Motability Operations.

And she said that journey data was recorded via a Bluetooth device in the vehicle and was “only shared at the end of a trip to calculate a driving score”, while “no additional data is taken from the customer’s phone and data is only used for scoring driving characteristics to assess the likelihood of an accident”.

*Motability Foundation, the charity that oversees the Motability scheme, is a Disability News Service subscriber