The app now combines a Driving Safety Score with information on speeding, phone use, harsh braking, rapid acceleration and cornering. Trip playback, real-time location sharing and arrival alerts are also available within the same service, allowing families to review individual journeys rather than rely only on a driver’s arrival message.
HeyPolo says location can update every five seconds while sharing is active, although update behaviour can change when the application is closed to conserve battery.
HeyPolo says its score is calculated from the number, severity and duration of detected driving events. The system uses a phone’s motion and location data and attempts to determine automatically whether the user was driving or travelling as a passenger. Users can manually change that designation when the automatic assessment is wrong.
The company’s terms, however, make clear that driving-event detection and scores are automated estimates that can be inaccurate, incomplete or incorrect. Performance can depend on the handset, permissions, battery and network connection, and the company says the information should not be treated as a factual record of a person’s conduct or used as evidence.
Crash detection is another part of the expanded driving package. HeyPolo says the phone’s motion sensors look for forces associated with a serious collision, including a hard impact, abrupt deceleration or rollover. When the system detects a possible crash, it asks the user to confirm whether they are safe. If there is no response within 60 seconds, an alert containing the user’s location can be sent to family groups and emergency contacts.
The feature does not replace emergency services, and false positives or missed events remain possible under the company’s terms. That qualification is significant because smartphone-based safety systems depend on sensor readings and software interpretation rather than direct observation of a collision.
For speeding, HeyPolo compares the phone’s movement with the mapped speed limit for the road. A driver must choose to share speed information before other members of a family group can receive alerts. Each group member can then decide whether to receive a notification when that driver first exceeds the limit during a journey.
The consent model distinguishes the service from covert monitoring. HeyPolo says family members control their own sharing settings, can select exact or approximate location information and can pause sharing. The driver can see what other group members can see. Its terms also require consent from a driver when driving information is collected while another person carrying the phone is a passenger.
The focus on young motorists addresses a measurable safety problem. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that drivers aged 16 to 19 have a fatal crash rate almost three times that of drivers aged 20 and older for each mile driven. Inexperience, speeding and distraction are among the major risk factors.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figures for 2024 show speeding was a factor for 33 per cent of passenger-vehicle teen drivers involved in fatal crashes. The agency also recorded 241 distracted teen drivers involved in fatal crashes that year, underscoring why phone use and speed are prominent in driving-monitoring products.
Safety authorities nevertheless emphasise measures beyond monitoring technology. The CDC recommends extensive supervised practice, seat-belt use and parent-teen driving agreements, while graduated driver licensing restrictions can reduce exposure to higher-risk situations such as night driving and carrying young passengers.
HeyPolo is available on iPhone and Android and places its driving functions alongside SOS alerts, location sharing and notifications for arrivals and departures. One subscription covers invited family members rather than charging separately for each user, according to the company.
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