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I find it dubious that people who get good scores on these telematics are actually better drivers or less likely to cause accidents. I've been stuck behind peo

I find it dubious that people who get good scores on these telematics are actually better drivers or less likely to cause accidents. I've been stuck behind people doing 40 mph on the entrance ramp trying to merge into a 70 mph interstate. It's terrifying. They get a great rating for their leisurely acceleration, while vehicles on the interstate have to slam on their brakes and swerve to avoid them.

asoneth 3y ago
I am also skeptical of the accuracy of the initial rules but this seems like a domain that should be fairly easy to refine with a large enough corpus of data. Once an insurance company has a sufficient number of claims from telematics users I would wager that they will be able to find strong signals in the telematics data to identify customers who are likely to be expensive.
- interlinked 3y ago
  It's impossible to tell if someone is driving properly based on just sensor data because if it were, we would have full self driving.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    It's ok we'll just feed your speeds, GPS locations, braking data, and acceleration data into a black box AI model and have it spit out a bill multiplier. All hail AI.
  - asoneth 3y ago
    Determining whether a particular driver is driving properly seems overkill. Any correlation between driving behavior and insurance payouts seems like it would be sufficient to improve the accuracy of your risk scores. Let's say you only analyze vehicle speed data. That is clearly insufficient for training self-driving. But it is very likely there is some correlation between speed and insurance payouts. For example, say you are able to segment your customer base including one subset with drivers who typically drive >80 miles an hour and another subset with drivers who typically drive <55 miles per hour. Are you saying that you would predict that the two populations have identical risk profiles? That speed data has no correlation with risk?
- oceanplexian 3y ago
  Someone can be a “safe” driver on paper, never get into an accident, but their actions regularly put other people in harm’s way. For example someone who’s driving well below the flow of traffic will provoke other drivers to have to pass them, but then eventually it results in someone getting into a head on collision. Sure the passing driver is ultimately at fault, but the slow driver has blood on their hands despite no accountability. If they were driving the legal speed limit it may have prevented a serious accident and loss of life. of course, the insurance company would be none the wiser.
  - asoneth 3y ago
    > Sure the passing driver is ultimately at fault, but the slow driver has blood on their hands despite no accountability. If the slow driver is on a highway with a minimum speed limit or they're performing other unsafe maneuvers like weaving between lanes or stopping abruptly then they're clearly not a safe driver, so I agree that slow does not always equal safe. But otherwise the collision is both morally and legally 100% the fault of the passing driver. Drivers have no moral or legal right to always operate at the speed limit if it's not safe to do so. My semi-rural town has very narrow roads and I regularly encounter utility vehicles, school busses, farm vehicles, and cyclists on the roadway, not to mention turkeys, deer, and turtles. If a passing driver caused an accident or was pulled over and they tried to argue to the police officer that the slower vehicle "provoked them" into passing dangerously I can't imagine anyone finding that a compelling argument.

asoneth 3y ago

I am also skeptical of the accuracy of the initial rules but this seems like a domain that should be fairly easy to refine with a large enough corpus of data. Once an insurance company has a sufficient number of claims from telematics users I would wager that they will be able to find strong signals in the telematics data to identify customers who are likely to be expensive.

interlinked 3y ago
It's impossible to tell if someone is driving properly based on just sensor data because if it were, we would have full self driving.
- vel0city 3y ago
  It's ok we'll just feed your speeds, GPS locations, braking data, and acceleration data into a black box AI model and have it spit out a bill multiplier. All hail AI.
- asoneth 3y ago
  Determining whether a particular driver is driving properly seems overkill. Any correlation between driving behavior and insurance payouts seems like it would be sufficient to improve the accuracy of your risk scores. Let's say you only analyze vehicle speed data. That is clearly insufficient for training self-driving. But it is very likely there is some correlation between speed and insurance payouts. For example, say you are able to segment your customer base including one subset with drivers who typically drive >80 miles an hour and another subset with drivers who typically drive <55 miles per hour. Are you saying that you would predict that the two populations have identical risk profiles? That speed data has no correlation with risk?
oceanplexian 3y ago
Someone can be a “safe” driver on paper, never get into an accident, but their actions regularly put other people in harm’s way. For example someone who’s driving well below the flow of traffic will provoke other drivers to have to pass them, but then eventually it results in someone getting into a head on collision. Sure the passing driver is ultimately at fault, but the slow driver has blood on their hands despite no accountability. If they were driving the legal speed limit it may have prevented a serious accident and loss of life. of course, the insurance company would be none the wiser.
- asoneth 3y ago
  > Sure the passing driver is ultimately at fault, but the slow driver has blood on their hands despite no accountability. If the slow driver is on a highway with a minimum speed limit or they're performing other unsafe maneuvers like weaving between lanes or stopping abruptly then they're clearly not a safe driver, so I agree that slow does not always equal safe. But otherwise the collision is both morally and legally 100% the fault of the passing driver. Drivers have no moral or legal right to always operate at the speed limit if it's not safe to do so. My semi-rural town has very narrow roads and I regularly encounter utility vehicles, school busses, farm vehicles, and cyclists on the roadway, not to mention turkeys, deer, and turtles. If a passing driver caused an accident or was pulled over and they tried to argue to the police officer that the slower vehicle "provoked them" into passing dangerously I can't imagine anyone finding that a compelling argument.