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A former girlfriend of mine came home one day with one of these devices plugged into her car. She was the kind of person who just said "yes" to whatever was on
by SavageBeast 3y ago
A former girlfriend of mine came home one day with one of these devices plugged into her car. She was the kind of person who just said "yes" to whatever was on the form and she simply picked the lowest price option. My head immediately goes to the scenario where theres been some kind of an accident. Maybe it's a fender bender or maybe a pedestrian was hit. In one case you have a couple damaged cars and a deductible. In the other case you're facing down a manslaughter charge and even if you're not at fault it's going to ruin your life.
So now imagine law enforcement has access to your cumulative driving habits/traits and the last 20 minutes of driving that day. Imagine the insurance company has processed that data for its own purpose and assigned some kind of (totally arbitrary and contrived) "aggressive" or "risk" rating to certain actions etc. Law enforcement now has a prepackaged report that will invariably say you're a terrible driver. Of course the data collected is going to say that as the insurance companies aren't in business to charge people LESS money.
Now, whether or not you were or were not driving in a reckless manner, theres data to make a case with and nobody is perfect. That data may or may not reflect the reality of the situation and even so, prosecutors are known to take the easy route to boost their own stats. Now imagine a prosecutor looking for an easy win has a prepackaged report of biased information from the insurance company?
This whole thing seems like a way to possibly save a trivial amount of money in exchange for an increased likelihood of Really Bad Things happening to you.
- tokai 3y agoThe only issue with your scenarios is that nobody will ever get in trouble for killing a pedestrian.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y agoThat’s a disingenuous hot take. There’s a lot of discussion to be had about balancing Justice and societal/personal costs but you’ve gone and skipped past all of that.
- throwaway2056 3y agoI definitely listened in a legal podcast that somehow juries award lower sentences to road accident deaths as compared to others. Seems strange.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y agoAnd you’re using a throw away to make unsubstantiated claims without reference. You’ve given no reasons to take your comments as made in good faith.
- throwaway2056 3y agoI just use the term throwaway instead of JohnDoe. A quick search: https://abcnews.go[.]com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail-time-rarely/story?id=61845988 https://abcnews.go[.]com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail... If I find the legal podcast link then I will link it here.
- DropInIn 3y agoRoflmao... Okay, I've only been here a wee bit but even I recognized the username despite having memory issues (ironically here, caused by being hit no less than 5 times as a pedestrian and cyclist)....
- e40 3y agoNot at all. I've read multiple stories about how pedestrian deaths, even when warranted, rarely result in prosecution. Freakonomics even did an ep called "how to get away with murder" which was all about the statistics of pedestrian deaths. GP had a VERY good hot take.
- hahamrfunnyguy 3y agoI don't see this has a hot take. A couple weeks ago a car intentionally rammed into me from behind. I called 911 and the police took 30 minutes to arrive on the scene. The officer talked to me for about 3 minutes and then threw up their hands and said they wouldn't do anything because I didn't have a plate number and couldn't identify the driver. The police didn't even want to bother trying to get footage from nearby cameras when I called back and noted the location of several nearby security cameras that might have picked up the vehicle. By some miracle, I wasn't seriously injured.
- SoftTalker 3y agoMore and more people have dashcams now for this reason. Of course those can be used against you as well. Honestly if there's no injury, the police aren't going to care too much about damage to your car. They figure you're insured, so you'll be taken care of. In most cities they have bigger fish to fry and a car accident with no injuries is just not that important. I don't think they're entirely wrong.
- iamatworknow 3y agoI had a situation a few years ago driving down a highway at night when all of a sudden I noticed a weird "thing" in the sky in front of me. It got closer and I swerved, but not enough to avoid it hitting the side of my car, taking off the side mirror and gouging up the front half of the drivers' side. Then I realized it was the plastic bed liner of the pickup truck in front of me that became unattached at highway speeds and flew into the air like a kite. My car was still operable, and I had a (poor quality, especially at night, but operable) dash cam, and the truck ahead of me didn't stop, so I sped closer to close the distance to the truck and for assurance, read out the license plate number aloud so the dash cam's microphone could pick it up before pulling over. Contacted the police, took them about an hour to respond, and the officer gave me his email so I could send him the video. It was hard to make out but you could definitely see the object leave the truck, and a few seconds later appearing in my view, and me swerving. Contacted insurance, they arranged the repairs, and I was out the deductible. About a week later I got a call from the police saying they looked up the plate and lo and behold, it wasn't even registered to a white pickup truck, but a blue sedan, so the plate was either stolen or swapped from another vehicle, at which point there really was no recourse. Long story short, even if you have a dash cam, sometimes you're SOL. I _did_ use that as an excuse to upgrade my dash cam to one with better quality and night vision, but yeah, shit happens, and if nobody got hurt sometimes you gotta just accept it.
- mavhc 3y ago> Of course the data collected is going to say that as the insurance companies aren't in business to charge people LESS money. Isn't that what they did in paragraph 1?
- rpdillon 3y agoMy reading is the lower initial price is a incentive to allow the company to collect data. The data can then be used as evidence of poor driving, which then allows the company to raise prices. Although I've never used such a tracker, my understanding is they use proxy metrics for safety (accelerometer thresholds vs. accident record) that can facilitate this.
- hgsgm 3y agoIf your theory is that they can raise prices arbitrarily for profit, then you have to explain why they have not already done so. Insurance companies complete on actuarial accuracy. I'd rather bad drivers pay more, and be in incentivized to drive better, than young drivers and all drivers pay more.
- LeafItAlone 3y ago> then you have to explain why they have not already done so That may be easy: there is a lot of competition in the market. If one company raises their rates too high above others, it is very easy to switch. Lots of people switch every few renewals, chasing a cheaper price. With the individualized data, they can selectively raise their rates and either take more in from those customers, or get them (and just them) to flee. All without having to wait until _after_ an accident.
- zimzam 3y agoI know someone who's an actuary, and the reality is much simpler: people who consent to tracking tend to be safer drivers because they aren't afraid of the insurance company seeing their driving habits. It gives the insurance company a way to identify a lower risk group of drivers so they can charge that group lower prices.
- hgsgm 3y ago"likelihood" is only if you are more likely to be a perpetrator than a victim. Your insurance company pays more if you are at fault, so they'd prefer to prove you innocent.
- ozim 3y agoOr they throw you under the bus. To be liable for all damages. Because they find reason to do so with exclusions they have on policy. I believe any box or anything that monitors car will be used by insurance company to simply not pay up.
- mminer237 3y agoThere are very few exclusions for auto insurance. Unless you're using your car for a business without telling them or committing fraud, you're almost guaranteed to be covered. The whole point of car insurance is to insure your negligence.
- axus 3y agoThis makes sense for high-stakes cases that will definitely go to court. Otherwise it is cheaper for both companies to settle out of court and say both drivers are at fault and will be each paying their deductibles, and companies split the repair bill.
- Spivak 3y ago> as the insurance companies aren't in business to charge people LESS money. But the law is, auto insurance companies can only make money on scale. If they charge premiums that are out of line for the risk being covered they have to refund them. This happened when people drove significantly less during covid.
- jrpt 3y agoI don't know what specific program he's talking about but some of these optional programs only save you money. That's part of the sales pitch for getting people to use them. If you're afraid it'll charge you more, you wouldn't sign up. If you can demonstrate that you are a safer driver to their model, they can save you money. Whether you value that money more than your privacy is ultimately up to you. Some state they may charge you more, however. I just looked up a few: State Farm: "Drive Safe & Save is always a discount and does not surcharge your policy. The Drive Safe & Save discount is based on your annual mileage and basic driving characteristics." Nationwide: "Can SmartRide increase my premium? No. This is a discount program. SmartRide measures driving behavior to reward you with a discount, not raise your rates." Allstate: "Customers will receive a policy discount for participating in Drivewise and those who sign up and avoid risky behaviors can save on their premium. If customers stay active in Drivewise (active participation means at least one driver takes 50 trips or drives prior to renewal processing), their participation discount will not decline, but overall premium savings from Drivewise will depend on the customer's driving behaviors. Drivers who have riskier driving behaviors are expected to see a higher price from participating in Drivewise." GEICO: "DriveEasy is a new program that promotes safe driving by providing both GEICO and the customer valuable information about individual driving patterns. This is designed to help you become a safer driver. Most customers will be able to save based on their safe driving habits, however riskier drivers may see a higher rate – depending on the state you live in."
- maldev 3y agoAll new cars have a blackbox that records what happened before a crash. So it would just stop the constant monitoring point.
- biztos 3y agoIs there a known date before which this wasn’t the case? If you want to buy a car that doesn’t have such a device, do you need a 2010? A 2019? Country dependent?
- maldev 3y agoI honestly have no idea the exacts. But I know some cars have it even since 2003.
- pengaru 3y ago90s cars are the sweet spot where electronic fuel injection and emissions controls were mature enough to be reliable and having minimal complexity. It's mostly downhill from there.
- astura 3y agoYou're more likely to be maimed or killed in a crash though https://jalopnik.com/let-s-watch-cars-from-the-90s-crash-1846837783 https://jalopnik.com/let-s-watch-cars-from-the-90s-crash-184...
- olyjohn 3y agoI'm less likely to get into one in the first place, because I can actually see out of the damn car.
- duffyjp 3y agoI was fooled into using one from Progressive once. For the record I'm an extremely cautious driver of a 99 horsepower Prius C, exactly the type an insurance company should love to insure. Any breaking of even moderate intensity causes the box to beep and your "safe driving score" goes down. Yellow light, run it or your insurance goes up. Someone cuts you off and you avoid an accident, your insurance goes up. The final straw for me after a few months was another driver running a stop sign and feeling my brain waste milliseconds deciding if I should hit the brakes as hard as I should or juuuust hard enough to avoid hitting them in hopes I don't get a beep. I did the latter and it beeped anyway so I ripped it off the ODBII port and threw it on the floor. I changed insurance companies the moment I got home from work. My final score was really poor and I was pissed since I'm the slowest and safest driver I know.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoThat's my understanding, also--they're hypersensitive to the realities of the road. They really need to refine their models a bit rather than simply rewarding what they consider "safe" behavior. Yes, aggressive driving is a bad thing--but it's not something easily detected by a sensor.
- olyjohn 3y agoTrying to think of all the shitty driving I could do without triggering this device... I could easily fly up the shoulder at 40mph in a 60 zone bypassing all the stopped traffic. Could drive down the sidewalk at a 20mph pace. I can still weave though traffic as long as I don't go too far over the speed limit (assuming this device tracks location and speed). I can still tailgate the fuck out of anybody. I can still use my phone while driving. I can be completely wasted and probably not set the thing off. But don't you dare hit your brakes too hard!!!
- l1tany11 3y agoPractice braking at a stop sign with no one around? Bad driver!
- 3y ago
- thih9 3y ago> This whole thing seems like a way to possibly save a trivial amount of money in exchange for an increased likelihood of Really Bad Things happening to you. Historically, as a XXI century society, we tend to adopt solutions like this (AirBnB, Uber, “you are the product” platforms, blindly accepting ToS, etc). I don’t mean to be a nihilist, I just wanted to point out that this nothing new and that this is a trend. Hopefully there will be a way to balance this like the other examples, even if a little.
- ngc248 3y ago>>> save a trivial amount of money in exchange for an increased likelihood of Really Bad Things happening to you Nowadays, everything they come up with is like this.