4 ms·

The privacy concern is valid. It won't be long before all new cars are sending data from the sensors to third parties, and it would be unthinkable for the manuf

by sverige 10y ago

The privacy concern is valid. It won't be long before all new cars are sending data from the sensors to third parties, and it would be unthinkable for the manufacturers to ask for your consent before collecting that data since they'll make money off of it. The article mentions concerns with insurance companies. One I worked for tried to get customers to agree to having their rates adjusted based on data from their cars. It was mostly to do with how many miles the customer drove, but I think there was also an element that looked at speed coupled with GPS data to determine if they habitually exceeded the speed limit. There was a lot of pushback from customers and privacy advocates at the time and it didn't really go anywhere at the time (2007-08 iirc) but since that time I recall hearing of another company doing just that with some volunteers. Now imagine the insurer has access to everything on the CAN bus. Your rates could go up based on taking curves too fast, braking too hard too often, or following too close. The law enforcement angle is disturbing too. Then there's the nightmare of the advertising people getting hold of it, complete with GPS data. God knows what they'd do with it exactly, but whatever it is, it will be sleazy and annoying by definition. Time to include this on the list of things to oppose for privacy's sake.

vmarsy 10y ago
>taking curves too fast, braking too hard too often I was thinking about this the other day, people driving in San Francisco or Seattle hills would then have higher rates than people driving on flat Texas roads? People stuck in rush hours (where no matter how smoothly you try to drive, there will be more hard brakes) would have higher rates than people who can avoid it? regardless of the number of car accidents in the area?
- eru 10y ago
  Obviously, you'd want to use some more (and more useful) features to calculate your price. (Otherwise, your insurance company will lose out to the competition that prices better. You overcharge low-risk drivers who will leave to a cheaper alternative for them, and are left with the high-risk drivers who cost you a lot.) The area you are driving in is an obvious candidate. Or even the particular roads you are driving on at particular hours.
- beambot 10y ago
  Geography is already taken into account for insurance rates. Why would that cease to be the case with more information?
Houshalter 10y ago
I can't see how this is a bad thing at all. Currently rates are set on arbitrary things that merely correlate with driving skill, like past record, age, and gender, etc. I'd love to be rewarded for actually being a good driver. Rather than being lumped in with bad drivers who have a high chance of being in $50k accidents, which everyone has to collectively pay for. Driving is also the leading cause of death of young people, so anything that encourages people to drive safer is a huge net good for society. What's more effective, a sticker that says "buckle up" or "drive slower", or knowing that your insurance company is keeping track of it? Of course it should be voluntary and opt out. But there could be a huge gain for people who opt in.
- Retra 10y ago
  >I'd love to be rewarded for actually being a good driver. Rather than being lumped in with bad drivers who have a high chance of being in $50k accidents, which everyone has to collectively pay for. The whole point of insurance is not to lump you into good driver / bad driver categories. If you make bad drivers consistently pay for accidents, then you might as well not have insurance at all, and you'll pay perfectly in direct proportion to the accidents you are involved in. Insurance adds fuzziness to the otherwise "perfectly rational" outcome because people that do not behave rationally with respect to accident avoidance and financial planning will be at a severe survival and status disadvantage to those who do. It's like putting safeties on guns to prevent careless people from shooting people or getting shot. It makes the world more forgiving of individual mistakes at public cost.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    In the US, car insurance gives discounts for all sorts of things and charges bad (really, high risk) drivers more. For example: https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/auto/resources/high-risk-auto-insurance https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/auto/resources/high-risk...
  - eru 10y ago
    The whole point of insurance is to make you pay for the risks you take, and not for when you get lucky/unlucky. That we often lump people together is just one implementation of insurance. But not a necessary feature. Otherwise, there would be no insurance for one-off events---but that happens all the time. There's nothing inherently 'social' about insurance. See eg http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/03/warren_buffett_s_billion_dollar_bracket_challenge_the_legal_feud_that_killed.html http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/03/warr...
Andys 10y ago
What if it turns out that people who take corners faster make fewer claims?
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  Or what about if the people who take corners.faster make LESS claims? PS: not trying to defend aggressive driving, I'm not an agresive driver, just saying it'd be interesting if a lot of our assumptions were thrown out the window with that data.
  - drewbug 10y ago
    What's the difference between your comment's "LESS" and its parent's "fewer"?
    - dorfsmay 10y ago
      wow, I was sure it said more...
    - tzs 10y ago
      That depends on what he was trying to do with that comment. I believe that he's trying to make a distinction between the number of claims filed by people who take corners faster and the size of the claims made by such people when they do file a claim. Generally, "fewer" is used when talking about things that come in discrete amounts, and "less" when talking about continuous things. For example, if you were comparing the amount of water in two glasses of water you would say that one has less water than the other, but if you were comparing the number of ice cubes in the two glasses you would say one has fewer ice cubes than the other. However, "less" is often used even for discrete things when there is a unit attach, such as with money. E.g., we might reasonably say either "the waller contained less than $5" or the "the wallet contained less than $10". Before the late 18th century "less" was used with discrete things. As with many things in grammar, some prescriptivist decided that people were doing it wrong and made a new rule, and we got stuck with it. And like other such bogus rules (such as not splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with prepositions) current usage is tending away from following the rule. The main argument I've seen that we need different words for comparing discrete things and comparing continuous things is that it is less ambiguous when it would not be clear what word the comparison word applies to. For instance suppose there were two studies of possible cancer treatments. Study A produced 2 promising treatments and study B produced 4 promising treatments. All of the treatments from study A look like they will be better than all of the treatments from study B. Using the prescriptivist take on "less" and "fewer" we could say that study A has "fewer promising results" (we are comparing the number of results) but study B has "less promising results" (we are comparing the quality of the results). Anyway, I think that is the distinction he was trying to make.
maxerickson 10y ago
It's already a product. https://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot/ https://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot/ (among others)

by sverige 10y ago

vmarsy 10y ago

>taking curves too fast, braking too hard too often I was thinking about this the other day, people driving in San Francisco or Seattle hills would then have higher rates than people driving on flat Texas roads? People stuck in rush hours (where no matter how smoothly you try to drive, there will be more hard brakes) would have higher rates than people who can avoid it? regardless of the number of car accidents in the area?

eru 10y ago
Obviously, you'd want to use some more (and more useful) features to calculate your price. (Otherwise, your insurance company will lose out to the competition that prices better. You overcharge low-risk drivers who will leave to a cheaper alternative for them, and are left with the high-risk drivers who cost you a lot.) The area you are driving in is an obvious candidate. Or even the particular roads you are driving on at particular hours.
beambot 10y ago
Geography is already taken into account for insurance rates. Why would that cease to be the case with more information?

Houshalter 10y ago

I can't see how this is a bad thing at all. Currently rates are set on arbitrary things that merely correlate with driving skill, like past record, age, and gender, etc. I'd love to be rewarded for actually being a good driver. Rather than being lumped in with bad drivers who have a high chance of being in $50k accidents, which everyone has to collectively pay for. Driving is also the leading cause of death of young people, so anything that encourages people to drive safer is a huge net good for society. What's more effective, a sticker that says "buckle up" or "drive slower", or knowing that your insurance company is keeping track of it? Of course it should be voluntary and opt out. But there could be a huge gain for people who opt in.

Retra 10y ago
>I'd love to be rewarded for actually being a good driver. Rather than being lumped in with bad drivers who have a high chance of being in $50k accidents, which everyone has to collectively pay for. The whole point of insurance is not to lump you into good driver / bad driver categories. If you make bad drivers consistently pay for accidents, then you might as well not have insurance at all, and you'll pay perfectly in direct proportion to the accidents you are involved in. Insurance adds fuzziness to the otherwise "perfectly rational" outcome because people that do not behave rationally with respect to accident avoidance and financial planning will be at a severe survival and status disadvantage to those who do. It's like putting safeties on guns to prevent careless people from shooting people or getting shot. It makes the world more forgiving of individual mistakes at public cost.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  In the US, car insurance gives discounts for all sorts of things and charges bad (really, high risk) drivers more. For example: https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/auto/resources/high-risk-auto-insurance https://www.statefarm.com/insurance/auto/resources/high-risk...
- eru 10y ago
  The whole point of insurance is to make you pay for the risks you take, and not for when you get lucky/unlucky. That we often lump people together is just one implementation of insurance. But not a necessary feature. Otherwise, there would be no insurance for one-off events---but that happens all the time. There's nothing inherently 'social' about insurance. See eg http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/03/warren_buffett_s_billion_dollar_bracket_challenge_the_legal_feud_that_killed.html http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/03/warr...

Andys 10y ago

What if it turns out that people who take corners faster make fewer claims?

dorfsmay 10y ago
Or what about if the people who take corners.faster make LESS claims? PS: not trying to defend aggressive driving, I'm not an agresive driver, just saying it'd be interesting if a lot of our assumptions were thrown out the window with that data.
- drewbug 10y ago
  What's the difference between your comment's "LESS" and its parent's "fewer"?
  - dorfsmay 10y ago
    wow, I was sure it said more...
  - tzs 10y ago
    That depends on what he was trying to do with that comment. I believe that he's trying to make a distinction between the number of claims filed by people who take corners faster and the size of the claims made by such people when they do file a claim. Generally, "fewer" is used when talking about things that come in discrete amounts, and "less" when talking about continuous things. For example, if you were comparing the amount of water in two glasses of water you would say that one has less water than the other, but if you were comparing the number of ice cubes in the two glasses you would say one has fewer ice cubes than the other. However, "less" is often used even for discrete things when there is a unit attach, such as with money. E.g., we might reasonably say either "the waller contained less than $5" or the "the wallet contained less than $10". Before the late 18th century "less" was used with discrete things. As with many things in grammar, some prescriptivist decided that people were doing it wrong and made a new rule, and we got stuck with it. And like other such bogus rules (such as not splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with prepositions) current usage is tending away from following the rule. The main argument I've seen that we need different words for comparing discrete things and comparing continuous things is that it is less ambiguous when it would not be clear what word the comparison word applies to. For instance suppose there were two studies of possible cancer treatments. Study A produced 2 promising treatments and study B produced 4 promising treatments. All of the treatments from study A look like they will be better than all of the treatments from study B. Using the prescriptivist take on "less" and "fewer" we could say that study A has "fewer promising results" (we are comparing the number of results) but study B has "less promising results" (we are comparing the quality of the results). Anyway, I think that is the distinction he was trying to make.

maxerickson 10y ago

It's already a product. https://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot/ https://www.progressive.com/auto/snapshot/ (among others)