I have one of those Bluetooth beacons from State Farm in my car.
I just looked at my grades.
Left turns C+
Right turns B
Acceleration B
Braking B-
Speed A+
Time of Day B
I had to look up the turns.
They’re based on the sharpness at which turns are taken.
I will now swing out more for turns.
If that means what I think it does, I would not recommend this. No reason to do and it increases risk as drivers in other lanes don’t expect you to swing right for a left turn.
“Bluetooth beacons from State Farm” – I’d take this with a large grain of salt. For example, how can they grade you on time of day?
I was not talking about a large amount.
Acceleration - The acceleration grade is measured by sharp increases in speed.
Braking - The braking grade is measured by the abruptness of hard braking occurrences.
Over the course of a year, a few hard braking instances during the entire time your vehicles is driven will not cause a drastic change in your grade. State Farm understands sometimes it is necessary for drivers to brake suddenly, swerve, or make sensitive maneuvers in order to avoid an accident or other road hazards.
Left/Right Turns - The turn grades are measured by the sharpness at which turns are taken.
Mileage - The number of miles that are expected to be driven over a full one year period. This is calculated based on the average miles driven each day when data was collected
Speed - The speed of the vehicle is captured; however, real time vehicle speeds are not stored or compared to posted speed limits for use in the calculation of the discount.
Time of Day - The time of day is measured by the amount of time spent driving during risky times of day, which may include rush hour traffic or late night driving.
I got a $15 discount just for installing the beacon.
I was told I could get up to a 30% discount based on my grade.
Speaking for myself, I don’t even try to read any post that requires scrolling up, down, left or right.
I’d guess that left turns would be less sharp that right turns, just b/c we drive on the right side of the road, so the turning radius is bigger on left turns. So it is curious why you get lower grades on left turns. I wonder how they know whether you are turning left vs right, and how sharply you are turning? They could get the other info from the speedo I guess.
But the sharpness of your turn depends on the intersection and the lanes. Your driving skills are only a small part of of that.
And some of us are forced to drive during rush hour.
They do so by using accelerometers and gps.
The gps gives them your location.
So by using your location and time, they can figure how fast your are going.
By measuring the amount of static acceleration due to gravity, you can find out the angle the device is tilted at with respect to the earth. By sensing the amount of dynamic acceleration, you can analyze the way the device is moving. At first, measuring tilt and acceleration doesn’t seem all that exciting. However, engineers have come up with many ways to make really useful products with them.
At no time, whether you’re making a right turn or a left turn from a left (of two adjacent) turn, should you enter into or make any move that suggests you’re going to enter into any other lane than your own. People who swing right to make a left, or swing left to make a right, cause accidents. And there’s never any cause to do so.
When making any turn, left or right, you should enter it from either the center of your lane or a side of your lane biased toward the final goal. And you should enter the new lane with as small an arc radius as practical, not cutting out the corner of another lane.
Even tractor-trailer drivers, who have to deal with rear wheels that cut much deeper into the turn and cut a much larger turning radius that the front wheels, don’t suddenly “swing out” into other lanes. They anticipate ahead and bias their truck to the side of their lane opposite the turn they’ll be making, drive farther into the corner before turning than a car driver is used to, and then cut a very sharp turn with the front wheels. If they must use part of another lane, they position the truck to reduce the likelihood of being misunderstood and having some nut try to squeeze through on their right. They also have signs on their trailers warning drivers of the inherent weaknesses of their trucks in turns, things like “this truck makes wide turns” (with a drawn depiction). Occasionally some idiot does try to squeeze through the wrong side of a turning truck, but no preventative measure is 100% effective.
I don’t know how these electronic insurance spies would grade these turns. But I wouldn’t have one of these potential adversaries in my car if you paid me to. Well, maybe if you paid me A LOT!!! 
If you really want to understand how turns work, I recommend getting a steerable toy car, a steerable toy truck, a few “third party” toy cars, and a piece of wood onto which you can draw lanes and corners. Play with them and see how wheels actually track in turns. I taught my daughter how to parallel park using similar toys and it worked beautifully. She initially thought I was nuts, but she really understood how a car moves when making a parallel park after we played with the toys. She “nailed it” when we then went out and tried it, and she had really been struggling with this maneuver. Toy cars really can be a great learning tool.
In summary, there is one practice in my response that I recommend above all else. Take a tip from the truckers. Anticipate, plan ahead, and position your car ahead for a good turn before starting to make one.
Back with my GTI, I’d have been pushing for an “F”…
Cut the corners short and fast, did you? 
I think you are thinking the worst.
There are a lot of bad things in the world, but there are many more good.
For ex. Many churches are volunteering mucking flood damaged houses in the Houston area.
True, Andrew, but they aren’t the subject of the thread.
I just discovered why I got a C for my left turns.
Every time I leave home, I have to make a relatively sharp U-turn to get to the other side of the divider.
It’s in a neighborhood with low traffic.
I am merely replying to his response by using an example.
The thread is “car beacons” and not left turns.
OK. On that topic, it’s terrible idea to install a car beacon. You’re either going to drive below their stupid standards, which will be somewhat slower than Grandma, and you’re going to be busy trying to game the system by, say, not swerving as hard as you could to avoid that wreck because hey, then you’ll get a bad turn grade (eyeroll), or you’ll drive like normal people, the insurance company will give you C and below grades, and then give you a 30% discount on the premiums they just raised by 300% because they’ve decided you drive like crap.
Oh, and if you’re really lucky they’ll track where you go and sell the data to marketers.
No thanks.
So your insurance thinks you are a right wing rush hour commuter that moves slow but brakes fast?!
I get some of these behaviors could increase accident risk, but would also like to see a study that people who got a B vs a C on a certain measure, are less prone to accidents. Otherwise, it is all useless data being linked to your insurance rate.
I’m an F-turn kinda guy. The sharper the better in order to get into the groove. I can go faster that way. No tire squealing, though. A slow turn for me is 15 mph. All this in a sedate Accord sedan. I’m not so bold in the minivan, though.
Good work.
So, from the ads I’ve seen these driving monitors can reduce your insurance rates. Does that also mean you’ll be penalized for the C+ that the monitor gave you, despite the fact that it isn’t really from bad driving?
Think carefully about that one. You may want to reconsider this wonderful new technology.
Flo (AKA Progressive Ins.) also offers this. I chose not to get it since I actually Drive my car. “Sharpness of turns”, most turns I take are 90 degree, what does State Farm expect? I also asked my ins. agent about about AARP safe driver course savings, she said it would take about three years to pay it back in insurance savings.
There is fast (15 mph+), moderate (about 10), slow (5 mph) and glacial (under 5). They want glacial.
