If we can be real for a moment, it is maybe a little insane that we let 16-year-olds drive. Teenagers crash cars a lot, and it’s hard to imagine today’s panoply of harmless-seeming smartphone distractions making new drivers any safer. Of course, you can’t mention this to a 16-year-old, because God, Mom, I passed the driving test, didn’t I? The government trusts me so why don’t you? That gets to what’s smart about Automatic’s new driver program. It doesn’t try to catch youngsters being bad drivers. It just gives them a chance to prove they’re being good ones.
License+ comes as an update to the Automatic app, available today. It lets new drivers enroll in a 100-hour program, using the company’s http://www.wired.com/2013/12/automatic-app/”>car-tracking dongle to give drivers a score based on behavior like observing the speed limit and braking properly. In addition to supplying new drivers with the app’s standard audio feedback, License+ also has badges and medals for various safe driving achievements, like racking up 20 hours of highway driving, or going 10 days without slamming on the brakes.