5 ms·

I don't think that braking slower, or accelerating less (or even limiting turning g-forces) is really an indicator of "Safe Driving". Yes, it is definitely a si

I don't think that braking slower, or accelerating less (or even limiting turning g-forces) is really an indicator of "Safe Driving". Yes, it is definitely a signal, and obviously a good one otherwise insurance companies wouldn't be using it. But I think that the mark of good driving is knowing what you and your car can do, and actively paying attention to the road around you (several hundred feet behind and in front), and thinking about piloting the 2 ton piece of metal you're in as opposed to blindly doing it. A better, more strict drivers licensure program is the number one way to increase safety on roads and thus lower the cost of insurance -- but it has to be all in or nothing. On the flip side, I would find it somewhat amusing to put one of the trackers in my track car and see what they think of that...

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> I don't think that braking slower, or accelerating less (or even limiting turning g-forces) is really an indicator of "Safe Driving". Yes, it is definitely a signal, and obviously a good one otherwise insurance companies wouldn't be using it. But I think that the mark of good driving is knowing what you and your car can do, and actively paying attention to the road around you (several hundred feet behind and in front), and thinking about piloting the 2 ton piece of metal you're in as opposed to blindly doing it. If it is a "good signal" then it's an indicator pretty much by definition. The thing is, it doesn't matter what is the poetic mark of "good driving"; what counts are accident statistics going down. One constant about all humans is that you can't ask them to think, or care, or be nice, and expect them to change behaviour. You need to make them change, by changing their habits and/or incentive structures around them, of which, in the case of cars, the insurance bill is a very important part. People behave in a deterministic way, especially when you look at big groups (such as drivers). You don't yell at a river and expect it to change it's way, you force it to do it. > A better, more strict drivers licensure program is the number one way to increase safety on roads and thus lower the cost of insurance That would most certainly help, but I wouldn't call it the number one thing (the number one thing would be banning human drivers and replacing them with self-driving cars). I'd love to see driving licenses requiring training comparable to pilot licenses.
- Scoundreller 12y ago
  So I guess it has accelerometers because GPS doesn't refresh quickly enough to measure acceleration. So, who's going to design/build a nice shock-dampening mount for the devices?
  - lutusp 12y ago
    > So I guess it has accelerometers because GPS doesn't refresh quickly enough to measure acceleration. True, at least not for anything less than a second or two. > So, who's going to design/build a nice shock-dampening mount for the devices? Android devices have accelerometers built in that are cheap and would provide adequate resolution for this kind of measurement, and that can't be easily broken. No shock mount required.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      I think the idea of the parent comment was to build a mount that would hide periods of high acceleration. I imagine that's only possible if your "shock mount" is significantly longer than the car itself.
      - lutusp 12y ago
        > I think the idea of the parent comment was to build a mount that would hide periods of high acceleration. Ah. Missed that. > I imagine that's only possible if your "shock mount" is significantly longer than the car itself. Yes, true -- a little calculation shows it would be nearly impossible to hide a car's jackrabbit start from within the car.
        Scoundreller 12y ago
        Darn. Maybe someone will come up with something that sits on the I2C or SPI bus of the accelerometer chip and does ???.
        12y ago

TeMPOraL 12y ago

> I don't think that braking slower, or accelerating less (or even limiting turning g-forces) is really an indicator of "Safe Driving". Yes, it is definitely a signal, and obviously a good one otherwise insurance companies wouldn't be using it. But I think that the mark of good driving is knowing what you and your car can do, and actively paying attention to the road around you (several hundred feet behind and in front), and thinking about piloting the 2 ton piece of metal you're in as opposed to blindly doing it. If it is a "good signal" then it's an indicator pretty much by definition. The thing is, it doesn't matter what is the poetic mark of "good driving"; what counts are accident statistics going down. One constant about all humans is that you can't ask them to think, or care, or be nice, and expect them to change behaviour. You need to make them change, by changing their habits and/or incentive structures around them, of which, in the case of cars, the insurance bill is a very important part. People behave in a deterministic way, especially when you look at big groups (such as drivers). You don't yell at a river and expect it to change it's way, you force it to do it. > A better, more strict drivers licensure program is the number one way to increase safety on roads and thus lower the cost of insurance That would most certainly help, but I wouldn't call it the number one thing (the number one thing would be banning human drivers and replacing them with self-driving cars). I'd love to see driving licenses requiring training comparable to pilot licenses.

Scoundreller 12y ago
So I guess it has accelerometers because GPS doesn't refresh quickly enough to measure acceleration. So, who's going to design/build a nice shock-dampening mount for the devices?
- lutusp 12y ago
  > So I guess it has accelerometers because GPS doesn't refresh quickly enough to measure acceleration. True, at least not for anything less than a second or two. > So, who's going to design/build a nice shock-dampening mount for the devices? Android devices have accelerometers built in that are cheap and would provide adequate resolution for this kind of measurement, and that can't be easily broken. No shock mount required.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    I think the idea of the parent comment was to build a mount that would hide periods of high acceleration. I imagine that's only possible if your "shock mount" is significantly longer than the car itself.
    - lutusp 12y ago
      > I think the idea of the parent comment was to build a mount that would hide periods of high acceleration. Ah. Missed that. > I imagine that's only possible if your "shock mount" is significantly longer than the car itself. Yes, true -- a little calculation shows it would be nearly impossible to hide a car's jackrabbit start from within the car.
      - Scoundreller 12y ago
        Darn. Maybe someone will come up with something that sits on the I2C or SPI bus of the accelerometer chip and does ???.
        12y ago