Can someone explain the nuances of how my safety score is affected?

[bro1999]

Gonna lay out a scenario and if people could chime in on which would be "better" for my safety score, would be much appreciated.

Scenario: Driving 100 miles on the highway, receive a FCW warning during the drive

• Drive A: receive 1 FCW while driving 5 miles manually, then 95 miles on AP of warning-free driving.
• Drive B: receive 1 FCW while driving 100 miles manually, no AP, no other warning

If scenario B would score higher than A, seems that unlike the guidance I've read, and using AP as much as possible is NOT always the best option.

 

[jdw]

A & B would score the same. With FCW's it is the rate per 1000 miles that is calculated - you can't fully "fix" a FCW the way you can with hard braking or close following. Getting a FCW on a short drive is a big hit, but you can make it less of a hit by driving more miles within the same day. For example, you have a 5 mile drive and you get dinged with a FCW. If you only drove 5 miles that day your score takes a massive hit as one event in 5 miles is equal to 200 events per 1000 miles. If you put on another 95 miles in the same day, it will mute the effect of the FCW, equal to 10 events per 1000 miles and greatly improve your daily score, compared to doing nothing. It doesn't matter whether you drive manually or on AP , as far as FCW's are concerned, miles are miles, although remember you can't get dinged for anything except AP violations while on AP (or for 3 seconds after disengaging).

Using AP is a great way to keep your score up, but if you get dinged for hard braking or close following, you can't fix it while using AP. The only way to fix your score is same day manual driving with *a lot* of gentle stops (don't touch the brakes at all and avoid full regen) or following another car (or better, a truck - nobody cuts in front of someone following a truck!) driving over 50 MPH with a 1 to 3 second follow time (roughly equivalent to a follow distance of 6 on TACC).

The safety score is not directly about safety, it is about teaching you to be a good beta tester who can anticipate the stupid things other drivers will do and learning to avoid putting yourself in dangerous situations.

 

[clydeiii]

This is interesting...my understanding was that a "day" is a meaningless thing to your overall score. What I mean by that is, your score would be the same under the following circumstances:

• Day 1: 5 miles driven, 1 FCW; Day 2: 95 miles driven, 0 FCW
• Day 1: 50 miles driven, 1 FCW; Day 2: 50 miles driven, 0 FCW

But jdw is implying that Tesla, for no particular reason, is weighing the score for each day as equal, regardless of how many miles you drove during that day. Seems crazy to me, but perhaps that's really how they're doing it..?

 

[clydeiii]

Kinda confused by Safety Score Beta :

"Your daily Safety Score is not impacted by the number of miles or hours you drive. We combine your daily Safety Scores (up to 30 days) into a mileage-weighted average to calculate the aggregated Safety Score, which is displayed on the main ‘Safety Score’ screen of the Tesla app."

So the daily score isn't impacted by number of miles BUT then it's combined into a milage-weighted average..?

 

[roblab]

What I see is that the poor drivers are the ones to worry about their "safety score". I know it never crosses my mind, and I don't know if I even have one. Don't care, either.

I do follow too closely sometimes. I was following a car just an hour or so ago who was doing 35 in a 55. I sat close enough that he noticed me, then he quickly swerved... off the road! Weird. I see so many people who just shouldn't be on the road, usually doing several miles an hour slower than the limit. Living in Napa Valley, I often see tourists trying to figure out directions to the next winery, and I'd bet several are buzzed before noon. And it's illegal to drive buzzed here, just like most other places. I give them plenty of room, so I don't mess up my beautiful car, until I come to a passing lane. Then the power of electric motors lets me zoom around them like a rocket.

 

[jdw]

This shows how Tesla calculates the mileage weighted daily scores and also how important it is to "fix" your scores each day as best you can.

In the case of the FCW's, they can drop your score well below 90 for a low mileage day. You can fix hard braking, unsafe following and aggressive turning pretty easily as they are proportion of time. If you get dinged for them, just do a number of gentle stops.gentle turns and plenty of safe following. FCW's can only be moderated with more same day miles, not entirely fixed. Forced Autopilot Disengagements cannot be fixed until they roll off in 30 days.

Tesla Safety Score Calculator - Find out how many miles you need to increase your Safety Score