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An Editor's Q&A with Rusty Weiss, director of the Consumer Division at DriveCam Inc.
The following is an editorial Q&A highlighting Rusty Weiss, director of DriveCam's Consumer Division, and the company's recent teen driving-related news.
 Editor: What brought you to DriveCam?
RW: I was introduced to DriveCam as a customer, and it didn't take me long to realize DriveCam's incredible potential to prevent injuries and save lives. My story isn't atypical of others at DriveCam - we have several team members that made unexpected or unplanned career changes because they experienced the "magic" of the DriveCam solution firsthand. I worked at DriveCam for five years, and then joined the management team, where my focus has shifted to a concentration on process and solutions.
Editor: What do you bring to the DriveCam team?
RW: I'm probably best known for my passion for addressing the epidemic of death and injury related to teen driving crashes. Prior to joining DriveCam, I was a paramedic and that burns the tragic consequences of unsafe driving into your mind - both for the driver and the others on the road who are impacted by their choices. That past experience, combined with my science-based academic background, laid the groundwork for my approach to addressing the teen driving epidemic.
It's easy to put a piece of technology on the shelf of an electronics store, but it's a real challenge to understand the dynamics of a problem and develop a solution that proactively addresses all the key factors. I've made myself a student of teen driving, and the Teen Safe Driver ProgramSM is the result of a relentless pursuit to understand how teens can be in the safest driving demographic when their parents are in the car with them, and the riskiest when Mom and Dad are out of the vehicle. Early on, I came to believe the solution lay hidden in understanding the difference between those two situations.
Editor: Do you think you have the solution to the teen driving problem?
RW: Three years of testing with nearly 100 families tells me we [DriveCam] are heading down the right path. The recent launch of the Teen Safe Driver Program with American Family Insurance gives us a chance to provide tens of thousands of families with a solution that eliminates the common barriers parents face as they complete one of their most important parenting obligations - the development and mentoring of a brand new safety-conscious driver. If our preliminary results hold true, we estimate the prevention of one serious injury per day and one death per month for every 25,000 teens in our program.
That potential is the result of an outstanding amount of dedication and talent displayed by DriveCam's engineers, planners, front-line workers, leadership team, contractors and investors. It truly has been an orchestra coming together to make what was thought to be impossible a reality. American Family Insurance gets an enormous "hats off" from us as well. Their belief that dollars spent repairing, healing or burying the negative outcomes of teen crashes could be converted to effective prevention is a societal breakthrough that will have profound impact on families from now until car makers figure out how to make a crash-proof vehicle.
Editor: You mention that DriveCam's solution is great for families. Teens actually like the program?
RW: For teens, the Teen Safe Driver Program puts the control in their hands. As DriveCam's enterprise customers know, the video event recorder only triggers when it senses exceptional forces, capturing critical seconds before and after an incident.
Good driving report cards mean teens earn hard-won trust from their parents based on their actual performance. The most ringing endorsement we get from our teens is that they'll enroll their own teens in the program when they are a parent.
The Teen Safe Driver Program understands the needs and demands of parents with teen drivers. In addition, we strive to address the influence of a teen's pleasure and independence associated with unsupervised driving. The Teen Safe Driver Program is extraordinarily convenient for parents - providing them with a third-party voice of reason and helping them deflect issues if their own driving habits are a little concerning - and actual video feedback means objective discussion.
Editor: Who is on the Consumer team at DriveCam and how do you work together?
RW: Bill Carpenter, Marcia Koepp and Andy Johnson are on the Consumer team. Bill is a Consumer Division executive and handles planning and strategic relationships. Marcia is the program manager and oversees enrollment, initiation and monitors for the riskiest teens and puts personal improvement plans in place for those families. Andy is the director of consumer services and is responsible for the processes, vendor relationships and customer Web experience.
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