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> Effectively mandatory meaning that insurance without a tracker will be like 10x the price. An alternative would be to only require tracking for drivers who h

by danans 8y ago

> Effectively mandatory meaning that insurance without a tracker will be like 10x the price. An alternative would be to only require tracking for drivers who have proven themselves to be unsafe (found to be repeatedly at fault in accidents). Car insurance is not just protection against accidents due to traffic and weather, it's also protection against negligent behavior of drivers themselves. In the longer term, though, we need to switch to other forms of transportation that don't require individuals to self insure. Perhaps that will be self driving car and bus services, that don't have the huge risks associated with people driving, or maybe they will involve expanded rail service.

gerbilly 8y ago
> require tracking for drivers who have proven themselves to be unsafe Bad drivers are already a part of the risk calculation. I think the desire to track them individually is a manifestation of our North American propensity to look for punitive solutions.
- reallydude 8y ago
  > Bad drivers are already a part of the risk calculation. That's a weasel statement. "bad" "part" "calculation" are all soft terms. You can always tighten the metrics, which a GPS would allow for, given time and rigor.
  - gerbilly 8y ago
    Fine, you can chose to see it that way. But I do believe that we have a bias towards solutions that punish a particular person.[1] It's an insurance company, if many people drive badly then you can be sure they've factored it in because they don't lose money over a solved problem like that. I still don't think we should target bad drivers for extra surveillance, because I value the privacy of the bad drivers too much. Also valuing the privacy of the bad drivers, is just valuing my own privacy down the road. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis [2] At first they came for the bad drivers, but I wasn't a bad driver ...
    - danans 8y ago
      Just an FYI, you are probably getting downvoted for drawing a terrible and insensitive analogy between (a) insurance companies and drivers and (b) the perpetrators and victims of a genocide. At least that's why I downvoted your comment.
      - gerbilly 8y ago
        No such parallel was intended. How are you getting 'genocide' from the above comment?
        danans 8y ago
        You wrote: > [2] At first they came for the bad drivers, but I wasn't a bad driver ... This is an allusion to "First they came... ", a poem written by a German Lutheran minister recalling the cowardice of contemporary German intellectuals who would not oppose the Holocaust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... You should be careful using allusions when you don't understand their origins.
        gerbilly 8y ago
        > You should be careful using allusions when you don't understand their origins. Even if I tried, there is literally no way I could possibly self censor myself enough to avoid offending everyone on the internet. These types, of threads based on offense are a waste of time: 1) If the person claims to be offended, you can't refute that because the offense is an internal state that they claim they are experiencing. 2) If the claim is that someone else maybe offended, then you also can't argue against that because now you are debating on an inference for which there is no firm evidence. It's like those endgames in chess where you wish you didn't have to move. Even by responding to this, I lose, because I will be likely down-voted for not being sensitive enough, even when no offense was ever intended. However I can flip it on you. Go and find proof that I intended to offend with my comment.
        8y ago
- isoskeles 8y ago
  Not sure we have a propensity for punishment here, at least not in a way that stands out from anywhere else. The way I see it is we have a propensity for profit, and some people figured out that punishment is easier / more profitable than rehabilitating people (not counting any negative externalities on the entire society having to deal with having a sort of underclass of criminals). And I would almost guarantee that someone made money off of establishing a contract to sell such tracking devices to the state, to then sell/force them on bad drivers. Profit > Punishment
  - danans 8y ago
    > sell such tracking devices to the state Private insurance companies buy these, not the state > to then sell/force them on bad drivers. They don't need to be forced. Those drivers could be offered the option of installing them with a smaller increase in premium, and not installing them with a much higher increase in premium. Eventually, if their driving habits don't change for the better, they will be priced out of auto insurance, which is what happens today if you continually are at fault in car accidents.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - JohnFen 8y ago
      > Those drivers could be offered the option of installing them with a smaller increase in premium, and not installing them with a much higher increase in premium. At a certain point, that's the same as being forced.
      - danans 8y ago
        > At a certain point, that's the same as being forced. At a certain point, the risk you impose on the insurance pool by not driving safely is greater than your ability to pay for that risk, so you have forced (priced) yourself out of insurance coverage. You can always go with another insurance company who will offer you terms that don't involve the tracking device, but they aren't going to extend that coverage to you for a lower price. But not everyone can be a safe driver, which is one reason we need alternative transportation options for them.

by danans 8y ago

gerbilly 8y ago

> require tracking for drivers who have proven themselves to be unsafe Bad drivers are already a part of the risk calculation. I think the desire to track them individually is a manifestation of our North American propensity to look for punitive solutions.

reallydude 8y ago
> Bad drivers are already a part of the risk calculation. That's a weasel statement. "bad" "part" "calculation" are all soft terms. You can always tighten the metrics, which a GPS would allow for, given time and rigor.
- gerbilly 8y ago
  Fine, you can chose to see it that way. But I do believe that we have a bias towards solutions that punish a particular person.[1] It's an insurance company, if many people drive badly then you can be sure they've factored it in because they don't lose money over a solved problem like that. I still don't think we should target bad drivers for extra surveillance, because I value the privacy of the bad drivers too much. Also valuing the privacy of the bad drivers, is just valuing my own privacy down the road. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis [2] At first they came for the bad drivers, but I wasn't a bad driver ...
  - danans 8y ago
    Just an FYI, you are probably getting downvoted for drawing a terrible and insensitive analogy between (a) insurance companies and drivers and (b) the perpetrators and victims of a genocide. At least that's why I downvoted your comment.
    - gerbilly 8y ago
      No such parallel was intended. How are you getting 'genocide' from the above comment?
      - danans 8y ago
        You wrote: > [2] At first they came for the bad drivers, but I wasn't a bad driver ... This is an allusion to "First they came... ", a poem written by a German Lutheran minister recalling the cowardice of contemporary German intellectuals who would not oppose the Holocaust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_... You should be careful using allusions when you don't understand their origins.
        gerbilly 8y ago
        > You should be careful using allusions when you don't understand their origins. Even if I tried, there is literally no way I could possibly self censor myself enough to avoid offending everyone on the internet. These types, of threads based on offense are a waste of time: 1) If the person claims to be offended, you can't refute that because the offense is an internal state that they claim they are experiencing. 2) If the claim is that someone else maybe offended, then you also can't argue against that because now you are debating on an inference for which there is no firm evidence. It's like those endgames in chess where you wish you didn't have to move. Even by responding to this, I lose, because I will be likely down-voted for not being sensitive enough, even when no offense was ever intended. However I can flip it on you. Go and find proof that I intended to offend with my comment.
        8y ago
isoskeles 8y ago
Not sure we have a propensity for punishment here, at least not in a way that stands out from anywhere else. The way I see it is we have a propensity for profit, and some people figured out that punishment is easier / more profitable than rehabilitating people (not counting any negative externalities on the entire society having to deal with having a sort of underclass of criminals). And I would almost guarantee that someone made money off of establishing a contract to sell such tracking devices to the state, to then sell/force them on bad drivers. Profit > Punishment
- danans 8y ago
  > sell such tracking devices to the state Private insurance companies buy these, not the state > to then sell/force them on bad drivers. They don't need to be forced. Those drivers could be offered the option of installing them with a smaller increase in premium, and not installing them with a much higher increase in premium. Eventually, if their driving habits don't change for the better, they will be priced out of auto insurance, which is what happens today if you continually are at fault in car accidents.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    > Those drivers could be offered the option of installing them with a smaller increase in premium, and not installing them with a much higher increase in premium. At a certain point, that's the same as being forced.
    - danans 8y ago
      > At a certain point, that's the same as being forced. At a certain point, the risk you impose on the insurance pool by not driving safely is greater than your ability to pay for that risk, so you have forced (priced) yourself out of insurance coverage. You can always go with another insurance company who will offer you terms that don't involve the tracking device, but they aren't going to extend that coverage to you for a lower price. But not everyone can be a safe driver, which is one reason we need alternative transportation options for them.