How a driving score turned road safety into a national game in South Korea

SEOUL – Thirty-one thousand, three hundred and sixty-six.

That is the number of traffic accidents South Korea’s most widely used navigation app, Tmap, claims it has helped prevent between 2018 and 2020.

The figure comes from an internal model comparing the accident rates of drivers with high “driving scores” to those with lower ones, adjusted for distance driven.

It is not the product of a government audit or a peer-reviewed study. In a country that records around 200,000 road accidents annually, it is a striking claim.

“Sure, it’s part of the company’s PR,” says Dr Chun Ji-yeon, senior researcher at the Korea Insurance Research Institute’s mobility centre, “but that number is still a concrete, if imperfect, measure of how Korea’s embrace of gamified driving scores might be nudging behaviour in safer directions”.

Since 2016, when Tmap rolled out its “driving score”, the concept has spread to Naver Map in 2024, Kakao Map in 2022 and even rental-car platform Socar.

The formula is simple: Your phone tracks acceleration, braking, cornering and speeding – the smoother and more law-abiding your driving, the higher your score. Points translate into auto-insurance discounts, gift credits or both.

According to Tmap in 2024, participation in the Driving Score program surpassed 19 million drivers, of whom 10.1 million have scored well enough to secure insurance discounts.

In most countries with usage-based insurance, the score is private and functional. In South Korea, it is social. Scores are integrated into apps millions already use daily, displayed alongside rankings against other drivers.

“It is one of the few score-based competitions in Korea where everyone benefits when scores rise,” said Dr Chun. “Safer driving lowers accident risk, insurers save on claims, and drivers save money. It is a rare alignment of interests.”

A carrot in a land of sticks

For decades, South Korea’s road safety gains have come from stronger enforcement. Laws against drunk driving have tightened. Networks of unmanned speed cameras have expanded.

Regulations in school zones, especially after the 2019 “Min-sik Law”, have sharply increased penalties for speeding near children.

“Enforcement and better technology are still the main drivers of change in road safety,” said Mr Seo Beom-kyu, head of the traffic safety division at the Korea Road Traffic Authority. “But the private-sector model adds something new. It rewards good behaviour, which government programmes struggle to do at scale.”

Government data reflects the progress. Nationwide traffic accidents fell from 223,552 in 2014 to 198,296 in 2023. Over the same period, accidents per 10,000 vehicles dropped from 2 to 0.9, while fatalities per 100,000 people declined from 9.4 to 5.

Modern car safety technology has also changed the baseline. Advanced driver assistance systems, such as automatic emergency braking and lane-keeping assist, are increasingly common even in budget vehicles. Crashes that once caused fatalities now result in minor injuries or are avoided altogether.

Against that backdrop, driving scores are an extra nudge.

“International studies have proven that usage-based insurance can cut risky driving behaviours,” said Dr Chun. “In Korea, I do have to say the evidence is more suggestive than conclusive. But it would be hard not to call it effective or successful.”

Insurers, though, have more than safety in mind. “In Korea, as in the US, these programs are as much about brand positioning as accident reduction,” said Dr Im Chae-hong, senior researcher at Samsung Traffic Safety Research Institute. “Once one company offers safe-driving discounts, competitors follow to avoid looking behind the curve.”

For many users in South Korea, the appeal is more than financial.

“When I got a perfect 100 last month, I posted it online like a medal,” said Ms Lee Ji-yeon, a 39-year-old office worker in Incheon. “It made me think more about how I drive, even when no one is watching.”

Others admit to gaming the system.

“If I have to drive in heavy traffic, I switch to Naver so my Tmap score doesn’t drop,” said Mr Kim Min-su, 32, who works in marketing in Seoul. “It might sound silly, but last year it saved me almost 200,000 won (S$185) on insurance.”

A uniquely Korean integration into everyday apps

Usage-based insurance exists elsewhere. In Japan, Yahoo! Car Navigation users can connect to Sony Assurance for premium discounts.

In the US, insurers like Progressive and Allstate have been using plug-in devices or separate apps to monitor driving for a long time.

But in most cases, the score is visible only to the insurer and the driver.

South Korea’s model is embedded in mass-used navigation apps, with visible rankings and frequent prompts to check progress.

That public element taps into what Mr Hyun Chul-seung, head of the Traffic AI and Big Data Centre at the Korea Road Traffic Authority, calls “a deep familiarity with measurable performance”.

“From school grades to fitness apps to delivery driver ratings, we are used to seeing our performance compared with others,” he said. “Here, it has found a relatively healthy outlet.”

Dr Im noted that this model also sidesteps Korean insurers’ earlier failed experiments in the early 2010s with plug-in monitoring devices, which Korean drivers disliked for their hassle, cost and “surveillance” feel.

When Korean navigation apps began doing the tracking directly, adoption soared, helped by the fact that Korea’s car insurance premiums, at around a million won a year, are very modest by global standards. “The financial incentive is smaller than in the US, but the social reward of keeping a high score is stronger,” Dr Im said.

Not perfect but part of the puzzle

The technology is not flawless. GPS drift can register false lane changes. Sudden braking to avoid another driver’s mistake can lower a score. And because participation is voluntary, there is an inevitable element of self-selection.

“Any metric people value will invite workarounds,” Dr Chun said.

Tmap is experimenting with more context-specific scoring, such as extra credit for obeying school-zone rules or coming to a complete stop before turning.

For now, the 31,366-accident figure remains a corporate claim, not an official statistic. But it reflects something visible on Korean roads: drivers who brake a little earlier, merge a little more politely, and share their score with pride.

“It is not the main reason Korea’s roads are safer,” Dr Im said. “But if you can get millions of people to think twice before speeding just because they want to keep a number high, that is a win worth noting.” THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK