Whether deserved or not, Dodge and Ram drivers are often stereotyped as aggressive.
The brands don’t exactly shy away from this. Dodge’s current slogan is “Domestic, Not Domesticated,” and Ram says its new Rumble Bee muscle truck’s exhaust has “a growl so aggressive you can feel it” and that the pickup’s low, widebody styling “takes up serious space on the road ahead.”
But now their parent company, Stellantis, has come up with a technology that could help temper the tendency to drive too vigorously.
The automaker has received a patent for a “Driver Aggression Monitoring During Use of a Vehicle” system that could easily be incorporated into all sorts of vehicles.
It monitors acceleration, braking, cornering, adherence to speed limits and even tailgating to score drivers and deliver instant feedback or a report at the end of their trip. But it’s not just about safety. It’s also meant to encourage moderate driving to conserve energy and reduce vehicle wear and tear.
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“After the report is provided or otherwise made information can be geared toward reducing the driver’s aggressive driving to improve vehicle efficiency and also safety,” the patent says.
Many cars already have efficiency coaches and driver attention monitors, but the patent focuses on setting a threshold, which can be adjusted, and flagging drivers who exceed it. If it is ever implemented in production vehicles, it wouldn’t be restricted to Dodge and Ram products, as Chrysler, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Maserati all fall under the same corporate umbrella.
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Of course, Dodge and Ram drivers may be getting a bad rap, at least when it comes to speeding. A 2023 Insurify report on the brands that have owners with the most speeding tickets on their record found that Infiniti drivers were the worst culprits at 8.7% followed by Scion (8.4%), Volkswagen (8.3%), Subaru (8.0%) and Mazda (7.7%), while no American makes, including Dodge and Ram, were in the top 10.
