ICBC hopes new app will help young drivers be more aware, crash less

Launched this week, the Street Sense app is essentially an educational video game that runs users through 15 scenarios involving common driving hazards in B.C.

ICBC's new app doesn't replicate the feel of being behind the wheel or replace the valuable lessons new drivers learn by getting out on the road. Instead, the app's developers hope it will help new drivers - and those new to B.C. - to recognize hazards more easily.

Launched this week, the Street Sense app is essentially an educational video game that runs users through 15 scenarios involving common driving hazards in B.C.

The scenarios include turning left at a busy downtown intersection, spotting and avoiding a deer about to jump into the road, and merging into a multi-lane roundabout, among others.

It's a concept John Nepomuceno, ICBC's road safety program manager, has been working on since he joined the company in 2017, though he says the iteration of the project that became Street Sense began development in December 2020.

"The process begins with us looking over our accident data, and then I wanted to verify - get some ground truth from some of our driver licensing folks," Nepomuceno told CTV News.

"(I) wanted to ask them, 'How are people failing, from your perspective?' … What are the patterns of crashes people are having the most difficulty with, especially young people?"

From there, the ICBC team developed storyboards for the app they wanted to make. They shared those storyboards with Project Whitecard, the Winnipeg-based developer that then created the app.