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IEEE Building Automotive Black-Box Standard
An anonymous submitter writes: "According to EE Times, the IEEE is working to develop an automotive black-box standard similar to what airplanes have. Forget Acme Rent-A-Car in Connecticut - get ready to have your insurance company jack your rates for going over 65mph."
Why on the internet? Even airplane black boxes don't appear to be hooked up for communication of any kind, otherwise people wouldn't be so concerned with finding them after a crash.
Why can't this be a similarly autonomous data-gathering device? If there's any need for it outisde of crash data recovery, clearly there's a different purpose involved.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
Man... I don't know if this is what I want America to become.
Are the police gonna tap into this? Wirelessly be able to find speeders? Everything's becoming so technical. "Well, the hot coffee was TOO hot, I want $200 million." "Well, my parents were segregated by racist whites... but I still call that this kid I see sometimes a 'white boy' or a 'cracker.' But I'm just kiddin' around, I'm sure it doesn't really bother him."
I guess I'm just ranting about the details of society in general.
But I really believe at some time we're going to have to ask outselves... how far is TOO far in what we do, and can we ever just let certain things go, even if it does giving up some profits?
Nahhhhh...
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
I doubt that they'll settle just for hiking your rates for driving too fast.
Heck, they might even go as far as to limit their liability if black box indicates that you were driving too fast at the time of accident - or prior to it. Or deny further coverage based on this etc..
Imagine sensors tracking your head or the usage of radio buttons or wether you used the turn signal. What about that stop sign before the intersection..
Yes it sounds like insurance company's heaven and a regular driver's nightmare.. Especially if it goes to that failure to follow traffic regulations limits insurance companies liability.
Pilots have professional training; blackboxes exist to record rare, unsurvivable events.
While pleanty of automotive crashes are unsurvivable events, they are not rare. Its quite telling that the word "accident" has been subverted to describe these events. Its not an accident; its a collision, with one or more parties directly at fault.
If we spent half as much money on driver certification and training we'd have far fewer accidents (and far fewer drivers on the road.)
Ask a German how easy it is to get a driver's license.
In the USA all you need is a regular pulse and the ability to breath without assistance to get a license.
If the law enforcement in the USA cared about public safety rather than revenue collection the roads would be a safer place.
Anyhow, this is turning into a standard rant so I'll just creep back under my rock.
The way it worked in this test program was a small monitor would gauge your speed (now that I think about it, another monitor guaging breaking habits could also be useful) such that if you were obeying the speed limits, you would get a discount on your insurance.
What a fucking moron you are. I bet you think it's great when pizza places offer free delivery, but a discount on pick-up orders. Don't you see there's no difference between offering a discount to those who choose option X (and of course raising prices overall), versus penalizing those who choose Y, without raising prices.
Also, basing insurance pricing on driving speed is only slightly less unfair than basing it on age and gender. Consider two drivers:
Driver A is a professional race-car driver, and, when he's driving his personal car (which is probably very well maintained, and chosen for optimal handling), he tends to go 5-10 mph over the limit.
Driver B is an octagenarian with mild Parkinson's, and a car almost as old as he is. He tends to drive 5 mph below the limit.
Who's safer? Who would you rather have on the road? Driver A has amazing reflexes, excellent situational awareness, and a well-handling car with good brakes. Driver B's reaction times are probably four times longer, and he probably can't remember the last time he had his brakes done.
This is, of course, an extreme example, but I think it illustrates how ridiculous it is to use an automated device collecting only one or two statistics to decide insurance rates.
A more moderate example:
When weather and traffic conditions are good, and the road allows good visibility (no blind corners, etc.), I tend to drive a little over the speed limit. When conditions are bad, I slow down significantly. Contrast this with people who always drive the speed limit, even when the road is wet or icy, and you'll see that my driving habits are a lot safer.
I admit it. I speed every day. Yes, that's *every* single day that I use the roads. 99% of other road users do exactly the same and you know what?
The roads are safer than houses. In the UK, you have more chance of being killed by an accident in your home than you have on the roads. Don't believe me? 4000 people killed in accidents in the home in 2000 and 3,500 killed on the roads.
Speeding is only targeted because speed is easy to measure. That's it. It's a cop out. The fastest roads (the motorways) are also by far the safest roads.
The vast majority of accidents occur in urban roads with a 30 limit at a junction and *don't* involve speeding. They are caused by lack of observation. "Sorry Mate I Didn't See You".
Putting black boxes into vehicles isn't in any way going to improve driver observation.
What just might improve road safety? Compulsory driving tests after an accident or compulsory advanced motorist training might just make a difference.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The idea of signing up for this willingly boggles my mind. You mean to tell me that you -never-, not -once-, end up going a few miles over the posted speed limits? Sorry, no one is that perfect. Beyond that, going over the limit -is- allowable under very limited circumstances [like passing a car you belive to be a danger]. Beyond that, it is a fact that most roads [with the exception of very old ones] are designed to support speeds 5-15 mph higher than the posted limit [if you don't believe me, try it out. Get on any Interstate when traffic is fairly light, observe the limit, add 10 mph and drive at that speed. 99% of the time, it will feel natural and safe. Now speed up another 10 mph. Feels a bit unstable doesn't it?]. Most times, speed limits have nothing to do with the actual speed the road can be driven upon safely, they have to do with zoning [oops, residential. The road is 4 lanes and straight as an arrow, but the speed limit is still 25 mph], studies on gas mileage/emissions [this is where the old 55 mph mandate came from], or the simple desire of a locality to bring in revenue by deliberately lowering limits to a speed that is near maddening [see the accounts of a few Florida towns].
Oh, BTW, if you honestly believe the insurance companies will lower anybody's rates because of this, I have a bridge to sell you.
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
Here they'll give any nimrod who walks in the door a license. I used to live down in Florida and they always had horror stories like the one about the 86 year old lady who was legally blind and failed her driving test 26 times before finally managing to do well enough to get a license. You can't go flying down I95 at 90mph because someone like that will cut you off doing 45mph. Of course, that doesn't stop people from flying down I95 at 90mph...
There are sections of interstate near my house where the average speed of traffic is 90-100 mph and those speeds are not intimidating as long as you've got a mile or so of visibility to see what traffic's doing ahead of you. Most of the drivers on the road here don't pay enough attention to be able to maintain such speeds safely. I don't think the ever-popular SUV will ever be safe at those speeds. Especially with the driver yacking on a cell phone.
It would be easily possible to actually monitor and ticket every car on the road going over the speed limit but if that happened here in the states, the speed limits would be quickly raised or eliminated on the highways, since it'd piss off literally every driver in the country, and almost all those drivers are eligable to vote. Selective enforcement, while technically illegal, works fine for keeping most drivers to within 10-20 mph over the posted speed limits.
The arbitrary nature of the speed limits are a pain in the ass though. I've been dinged for going 20 over the speed limit at 2 in the morning with no other cars on the road. And you can't argue that, even though road conditions were perfect for it. And I've seen people doing the posted speed limit in conditions where that was extremely dangerous. I'd like to see road conditions play more of a part, but I guess you can't trust many of the drivers on the road here to be able to judge them correctly.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They made the black box in charge of some
critical function needed for the car to work..
oh, say regulation of the engine, transmission,
and ignition systems:)
*Zaps black box*
Hey, why won't it start anymore?
But I digress....
As part of the test, Progressive also patented the algorithms to turn such black box data into insurance rates. Prog isn't the type of company that would license that tech (I am a pricing actuary at a competitor.
A little gossip from some folks I talked to a Progressive, BTW: Although the GPS data was predictive enough to let them consider doing away with other seemingly intrusive underwriting analysis, the thing that was really predictive was the whether a person was willing to let a black box be installed in their vehicles. All other things being equal, people who were willing to be monitored had fewer accidents than people who weren't.
Having lived in Britain and Germany, and now back in North America, I can tell you that American and Canadian drivers are the worst of the bunch. They're not properly trained. Drivers licenses are cheap and they're a joke over here. They drive horribly maintained cars with poor brakes, poorly inflated tires, headlights turned off in the daytime, etc. The end result being that it's more difficult to safely drive 90 mph in North American than in Britain or Germany. It can be done, but you're working against the odds and all the other drivers on the road. Overseas (where I've been at least), you actually have the support of other drivers and the general culture of responsibility, maintenance, etc. when you want to drive 90-120 mph.
80% of Americans go through life in a comfortable daze. They find the other 20% reckless and downright intimidating.
the autobahn does have a speed limit of 250 km/h. it is enforced in an odd way though: car manufacturers must speed limit their cars to 250 km/h.
i also notice that german drivers are far more skilled than US drivers. i've been surprised many a time to find drivers in germany (contrary to my low expectations) observant, forward thinking, and skillfully agressive, yet they know when to be careful (pedestrians and bicyclists are treated like gods). and i've noticed a higher percentage of people brake before turns, and accelerate through turns, then i've ever seen in the US. i'm sure many an accident on 17 crossing to Santa Cruz could be avoided if people actually slowed before entering the turns in rainy weather, rather than nailing the brakes at the apex.