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Big Brother In Your Front Seat
Rick Zeman writes "Would you give up your privacy in your car to save a few bucks on your auto insurance? 'Safe' drivers who plug an electronic device into their vehicles will be then eligible for a discount on their insurance. They say, '...the device constantly tracks car speed. By comparing that with a clock in the TripSense device, the device figures how far the car goes, mapping it against the time of day. At the end of each policy term, the customer would download the data and see what discount he or she would get. Customers can see all their data before deciding to send it to Progressive, and can decide not to send it -- and not get extra discounts.' I wonder how soon it will be that everyone has one except those resigned to paying extra as with grocery 'convenience' cards."
Stay the f**k out of my life.
I wonder how soon it will be that everyone has one
I wonder how long till someone hacks it to get a discount on their insurance.
Oh and does it run Linux?
Gotta love this. It's entrampment. They assume if you don't wish to upload your driving data that you are a bigger risk.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Especially if they decide that you should pay more for excessive speeding. How many people actually obey the speed limit all the time?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
How long until this is hacked? I predict even before it hits the mainstream and they are still running trials.
what's next after that? save a few bucks on health insurance if i walk around with a camera showing i don't smoke?
it's all the lawyers fault anyways. go put the damn black box in their car and see how they like it
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Porsche stock went down 22%
Someone told me once that if you rent an Avis car with GPS capabilities and you are speeding, the system will alert the main office and add fees to your car rental bill. I don't care to verify the story; I drive fast as it is.
Did anyone bother to ask the customers what they want?
How long before we're able to carry a device like this on our person? Why on earth would the medical insurance industry pass up something like this?
You don't have to use it. We don't have to insure you.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
the rectifiers might have an IC in it, but I don't think there's anything on it that would have a socket to stick this into. Unless it's a mini GPS with an inertial guidance system, in which I want one for each of my vehicles.
I'd drive any way I want and then I'd just upload information in there that makes me look good! :)
Considering that many cars already now log that last few seconds of your speed in a form that can be subpoenaed, this voluntary data logging and submission represents a step *forward* in users controlling their own risk information and more accurately generating actuary data.
The catch is that you have to be insured by Progressive. Bleh. I had their service for a year, then jumped to State Farm and am paying $300 less per 6-month term then I was before.
Also, what about those of us who constantly go 5 mph above the speed limit? Would we be targeted as reckless drivers because we "speed" most of the time? No thanks.
Mine would say I do 6 MPH below the speed limit at every given time and I never tailgate and always stop for little old ladies in the crosswalk... Regardless of my 110 MPH habits.
Or if I'm going to be crazy for a little bit I'll just deactivate it.
Remember a tip of security of a device... if you can get your hands on it, especially in your house or garage for a matter of months, it's as good as hacked. Other, non-tech savvy people may think otherwise about it though.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
I would gladly install one of these in my car. It would provide hard evidence in the case of an accident or unlawful speeding ticket.
Hey... maybe they should make them mandatory in police cars to stop all those speeding cops... Anyone else notice how cops are immune to the speed limit?
IMO, I think they'd have to offer a little bit more of a discount for the masses to really consider it. I'd slow down a bit if it were worth it. But for someone who may be paying $500/yr for insurance and getting MAYBE 5% off, that's only $25, or maybe $2/month. Just doesn't sound too enticing to me, though some people may jump at the opportunity to save a little. But your results may vary.
Does anyone even remotely believe that children (let's say those under 25 still covered uner their parent's insurance) drive as responsibly as they might tell their parents?
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
Because that truck is trying to merge and the assholes next to you and behind you are crowding too close to make slowing down or changing lanes an option that doesn't result in an accident?
Or how about the dumbass who goes slow as hell on the highway, causing more of a danger to others than the guy who goes slightly over the speed limit?
Hell, what about the number of morons I've had to avoid becuase they can't figure out which fucking lane to turn into in a double left turn?
My point is speed isn't the only deciding factor in accidents, and if you have a device that measures only speed, well, it's like asking a blind man to describe the mountain vista to you. He can only say so much about it, in a non-contextual way, in a situation where context is of the utmost importance. It's the reason we don't have automatic pilot on cars yet... context is too important.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Because once its in there and shows positive statistics, the government might mandate it.
And once THAT happens, it becomes information they could subpoena.
So you get into an accident that you *know* was the other guys fault, but your little black box says you were speeding slightly at the time, and the courts could quickly decide that you really were partially at fault and force your insurance company to pony up (and thus increase your rates) where now the other guys insurance would have to pick it up.
Information you are not in control of will be used to control you. Better it simply not exist at all.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
I suppose if all cars came eqiupped with such a device from the factory, and it had gps, satellite radio, navigation, lojack, a nice color screen, Dvd playback, and all those fancy things. Perhaps it might be worth the 'savings', especially if you could disable it. How long until the police get to use these things against you. "According to your widget here, you just drove 8 miles, while exceeding the posted limit by no less than 6 miles per hour on average. " One day we'll all have to ride in automated cars, just to get around all the idiot drivers, intoxicated drivers, car insurance, super strict laws, and it'll just take the fun out of everything.
just give a discount if there is a governor that is set to 80? What good would this thing do? What if I live in rural Pennsylvania, but take a trip through Michigan to see my sister? Do I have to submit an affidavit that when I was traveling 70mph it was legal?
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Report -- You traveled 4 hours this month at speeds of over 100 miles per hour...
-- You traveled 1.2 hours this month at speeds of over 120 miles per hours...
-- It is estimated that you traveled 0.0 hours below the speed limit this month...
-- You traveled 3432 miles this month...
-- You spent 60.4 hours in the car this month...
-- You need a life...
-- You have had 0 girls in the car this month...
-- You have had your laptop in the car for a total of 60.4 hours...
-- LOSER
Nothing like helping the self-esteem and getting a 0$ discount
You aren't required to install it, nor is that proposed.
You do not have to send the information if it shows stuff you don't want Progressive to be aware of.
Its completely opt in, and gives benefits that justify what information is requested.
I wouldn't use it(I'd probably triple my bill if I did:) ), but I think its a good idea and could help a lot of people for minimal disruption of their daily routine, and no unrequested privacy issues.
wow, this is the best idea since Circuit City came out with DIVX
"It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
I'd put it in my car. While (possibly) helping with my insurance, the data that this would retrieve would be interesting as it pertains to the mileage I'm getting and so forth.
;)
If I was a law abiding (i.e slow) driver, I'd like this more since it's hard evidence I can show my insurance company with possible and unknown rewards. However, as a young, hotheaded twenty something, my premiums would only go up
- 'Congratulations Mr.Johnson, according to our records you haven't gone above the speed limit in four years.'
- 'And what does that entitle me to?'
- '$30 off your next payment.....oh wait, see here - 1 year ago you went 2 miles over the limit. Make that $15.'
- 'Um...thanks.'
-Teiresias
I wonder how well Progressive's device will corralate with actual accident rates. It can't tell the difference between going 55 on a highway and going 55 in a preschool parking lot. Or, for that matter, 20 mph in the lot, and 20 on the highway.
Hopefully they'll do more than just histogram your speeds -- maybe they'll try to categorize your driving -- local, stop-and-go, freeway -- and then maybe check to see how often you suddenly decellerate. Jazz it up right, and you could detect cell phone usage, too.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
The only picure I could find for the port is here. It also has infromation about the cable and computer software. Unfortunately their photo of the port itself is a bit small and fuzzy.
The only standard way this data is available on vehicles is via OBD-II. Such dataloggers are already commonly available and used by mechanics to diagnose problems, but here is the real problem -- you could dupe them VERY esily. It would take any sensible programmer with a copy of the (free) standards less than a day to create some kind of simulator that you plug the device into instead of your car.
The only real benefit I see to this problem is that if you call them out on it, you'll probably be able to get the 'safe' rate without having to plug the thing into your own car.
...about this kind of technology. European lorry drivers have had to use tachographs for long time to assist law enforcement in ensuring that driving hours regulations are adhered to. As time has gone on they have become more difficult for drivers to tamper with, so the days are gone when a driver can just 'pull the fuse' on the tachograph when his hours are up and keep on driving.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
any person who has an ez-pass which is the new trend at least on the east coast is already having their travels through toll booths recorded in a database.
if you enter the NJ turnpike at the south end and drive to the north end, its a simple equation to figure out if your average speed was higher than the speed limit.
there are ez-pass scanners everywhere, including buildings all over manhatten. but everyone in the NYC area has them because it makes their lives and their commutes easier (as the name would suggest) and cheaper.
people don't seem to have a problem with those things being recorded if it means they don't have to pay more/ wait in line.
The actuaries tell them that could make substantial rate cuts, and advertise them like crazy (in ads even funnier than Geico's "I just saved a bundle...") if they could only make their process of weeding out relatively dangerous drivers more precise.
I wear a pretty fancy tinfoil hat most of the time, but I'm a safe driver, goddammit, and I can prove it, by my behavior. So: yes, please. I'll take it.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
No problem. I don't drive while I'm online.
-
well... over here in BC Canada, the government has a monopoly on car insurance. what can you say to that?
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Does the thing have GPS to know where I'm going and figure out what the speed limit there is, or do i get insurance discounts because I only ever drive on 25 mph roads... at 45 mph?
Are you discounted for driving only during the day?
Discounted for driving during non-rush hour traffic times?
Peanalized for going excessively fast at night?
Peanalized for accelerating too fast, or braking too fast?
Depending on what the discounts are for, this could be a step too far. But if they weren't too intrusive, it might be a good thing, provided the discounts are big enough. I don't need someone (especially an insurance agency) telling me precisely how to drive, but if their demands were reasonable (like never going over 90MPH) then I don't see major concers with it.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
One of the stated selling points along with diagnostics etc, was that you could check how far and how fast your kids drive when they borrow the car. And whether it was disconnected.
Wow, what a realistic stance on the Kroger cards. If you're *that* concerned about your grocer knowing how much beer and tostitos you buy fill out the card info with fake information or say you forgot your card and punch some random phone numbers after hitting the Kroger button on the little pay terminal.
Wow... This is brilliant on the part of the insurance company.
1. They allow drivers to voluntarily put this device in their cars for reduced insurance rates.
2. Drivers get used to having these devices in their cars.
3. Now that everybody is used to it, it is much easier to require it for insurance. So, they require it for insurance. With a few insurance companies doing it, it becomes the norm.
Of course, the caveat to the insurance companies is that fast driving does not mean dangerous driving. Many drive slower and (seemingly) safer but have more accidents.
Unfortunately, those boxes can't measure driver skill or the situations under which good/bad driving occurs. For example, 100 km/h is safe on the highway unless there is a lot of traffic with heavy rain and/or snow. Also, I drive a van at a fraction of the speed of my sports car. Driving at any speed in a van is much scarier than burning rubber in a sports car.
Sunny
Be my Friend
Big Brother In Your Front Seat (...) "Would you give up your privacy in your car to save a few bucks on your auto insurance?
Give up privacy of my back seat? Never. No way. Okay, okay, certainly not for just few bucks, but serious offers will be considered. Oh, you said "front seat"? No problem then.
I print up new barcodes for all my grocery courtesy cards as often as once a week.
Who says that I'll bother sending accurate data to the insurance company? They'll think I'm a 95 yr old grandmother, with the bits I email to them.
I ride motorcycles whenever possible. Lower car insurance due to low miles ( 5k/yr) AND none of my current bikes can support the 'Orwell' tech.
and the data goes by MY HD before going to the company! As good as hacked indeed.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
That depends..
If all my apples cost 20ct/piece for everyone, has for many years, whatever.
And you fill in a form that gets you a bonus card, and entitles you to get them at 15ct/piece.
Does that mean you got a discount ?
Or does that mean everybody else got a surcharge ?
Considering everybody else is still paying their 20ct/piece, as they have in the past, there is no change in the situation for them.
There is, however, for you. You can get them cheaper. You are getting.. a discount.
The situation you're talking about is this..
Apples used to cost 20ct/piece
Then I raise the cost to 25ct/piece, whilst introducing the bonus card. You fill in the info, I get you the bonus card, and you can once again get your apples for 20ct/piece.
Everybody else, however, would be paying the 25ct/piece.
In THAT case.. everybody else is getting a surcharge, whilst nothing changes for you.
Of course you could go halfway. Up the price to 22.5 or 17.5 for those with the card - in which case everybody else would get a surcharge - albeit a 'minor' one, whilst you would still get a discount - albeit a 'minor' one.
That said...
Of course insurance companies will raise the prices for those who opt not to get it. That's been the case for almost every piece of technology, though they're usually smart enough to make this a gradual change.
I.e. at the introduction of airbags, they didn't just raise the price insanely immediately - just gradually, until the time came where most cars do have an airbag - therefore not having an airbag makes you a clear minority.. a minority which, compared to the others, is a liability.
I'm a firm believer in the "idea" of traffic laws. Meaning in the mornings travelling to work in traffic I follow the speed limits accordingly. In the rain I drive a little slower and make sure to keep a good space cushion. I have never been in a car accident.
However come summer time, i'm in my sports car and WILL drive 120mph at 5am on my way to LA for a week, I WILL also go 80-90 when in a hurry and there is no one in fornt of me for the next 75 yards and my speed detector is not "bleeping".
This action would nullify my savings and probably eventually be grounds to give me a ticket in the mail.
In my current town of residence we already have Cameras on every single stop light that take pictures of cars as we go through the intersections on a red or when above a certain speed limit (not like 5-10mph - think 60 in a 25) which IMO is re-god-damn-dick-u-lous.
Now why woudl I want these cameras IN MY CAR in ADDITION to on my streets.
No Thanks. And too all you "good drivers" who NEVER go over the speed limit - just wait till you get your discount nurfed for going to slow...
Ave Molech Setting
How hard do you think it would be to scrub the raw data before uploading it to progressive? I'd probably leave in my morning commute, but edit things like the 85mph trip to El Paso for Thanksgiving. How long do you think it's going to take someone to figure this out?
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
I don't see these as that useful. Most car speedometers are way off. My Xterra reads 5MPH high. My Jeep Rubicon was 5MPH high stock but is now perfect with 33" tires. So you could speed AND still get the discount!
You are bidding on one (1) Sunday Driver Profile (SDP)package.
Includes:
1 SDP download (compatible with GEICO, AAA, Allstate, Progressive, and Farmers)
1 SDP handbook that includes background information of driving habits for answering those aggressive insurance agents
Don't pay extra for insurance! Let the Sunday Driver profile work for you - guaranteed to meet the specifications of your insurance company or your money back.
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
"I used the SDP package and saved 100s of dollars on my insurance! Thanks SDP!" - M. Gecko, San Diego
Self Defense - A Human Right www.a-human-right.com
Have you ever had to make a claim on anything? Do you have Medical Insurance and have you ever gone to a doctor?
I really want to know why it is a 'ripoff'. I have heard many people that have never made a claim on insurance, call it a ripoff. Is it a ripoff because it costs you money?
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
A device that that records on, say, a 30 second loop (i.e. it always has the last 30 seconds of your driving in memory). This would include your speed, weather conditions, relative motion of cars/objects around you, etc. Then, in the event of an accident, this 30 second block of memory is stored for use by accident investigators.
In other words, it only stores data in the event of an accident event, and then only a small block of time surrounding the accident.
Technical hurdles to be sure, but this might be a way to do it without invading privacy.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
The progressive device doesn't include a GPS. So how's the device know if I'm doing 55 down a highway, or 55 down the adjacent local road blowing through red lights?
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How does it measure speed?
What happens if you get stuck in the mud?
I can see it before me:
"Damn, i'm stuck in the mud"!
Speed the engine to 60 MPH, no movement
Get out, push
Get PO, speed the engine to 250 MPH.
A few months passes...
WTF? $40000 insurance bill?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I would just need to reduce the speeds and distances I currently travel, as this might cause an increase to my insurance....
According to the article: In Minnesota, where the highway speed limit is 70 mph, drivers who go over 75 less than 0.1% of the time get an extra 5% discount.
So what happens with the guy that always drives 60, but only drives in the 25MPH school zones? Data without context is worthless!
Plus, on a $1200 annual insurance bill, you'd only save $60 by giving up your privacy...
Things to do today: See list of things to do yesterday
I'm an independent computer consultant, probably like a lot of other Slashdot readers. So, put your business hat on and consider this from that perspective.
Suppose you're bidding on a contract to upgrade/replace a computer system for a potential customer. In order to give a proper cost estimate, you'll need to know as much detail as possible about the requirements. Perhaps this would include something like the average number of transactions per day performed. If all the customer can do is say that there is "a bunch" of transactions, your estimate will be very approximate, and you'll have to pad it accordingly or add a large contingency factor.
However, if the customer could produce for you an automated log of all daily transaction counts for the last month, you would have a precise understanding of what to expect, and could estimate accordingly. This may result in a lower estimated cost, and increase your chances of winning the bid.
Essentially, this is what Progressive is doing - they are asking for more detailed information in an effort to win your continuing business. If you don't provide that information, that's fine... but then they will have to rely on a more approximate estimate of risk, and the quote they provide you with will likely be higher based on less precise information. If you're a prudent businessperson, you'd be trying to do the same thing whereever you can.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
I wonder how long it will be until these (or something similar) is as "optional" as the breathalyzer - you don't *have* to use it, but if you don't then you get punished.
... there's all sorts of slippery slopes and scary sci/fi (Minority Report anyone?) to worry about.
I'm okay with the breathalyzer - that makes sense mostly; you've already been stopped, presumably for driving erratically. However, when/if we start applying Bush's preemptive foreign policy towards potential crime as well
They give you the data before you send it in. I assume it would be pretty easy to rewrite the data in order for you to maximize your "discount."
But that would be wrong.
-DropIt!
One Nation, Under Surveillance.
CB(s?)
free ipod and free gmail!
Well I for one welcome our new Overlo.....
Never mind... Too easy.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
You still have a choice among insurance companies. Choose one that doesn't snoop into your business.
We're the Wal-Mart generation; why pay more if you can get it for less, regardless of the *true* cost. So come one, come all; trade in your freedoms and enjoy 10% off your first purchase, because soon, you won't have a choice anyway!
CB(t?)
free ipod and free gmail!
If rates are going to rise, and they always do, why not have bad driver bear the brunt of the increase.
Then install tictac box in Mom's Buick.
Then wait for deep discount.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Lawyers aren't this smart. Its the actuaries. Actuaries are the ones who have to pass 8 math exams involving statistcs, calculus, probability theory, informatino theory, etc. to get and keep their jobs. Lawyers just have to pass the bar. And insurance companies pay actuaries to think of this sort of thing. They only pay lawyers to figure out how to make it legal.
Mathematics is not a crime.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They say it's optional now, but what happens when they make it mandatory?
Insurance Agent: Before you failed to stop in time and rear-ended someone, you were going 36 in a 35. I'm sorry, your full coverage policy doesn't cover speeding!
Ardente veritate incendite tenebras mundi
I've always maintained that there's a big difference between driving fast and driving dangerously.
I'm waiting for the first virus to alter any files transferred from the device to show that the driver constantly moves along at just below the speed of light ("I was wondering what that color shift was all about ...").
To any company that demands we use such devices: Anything you come up with we will successfully hack. Resistance is futile.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
I'm already ahead of the curve. I ditched my car and started using public transportation and the ankle express because the automotive and insurance industries had already squeezed the last drop out of this turnip.
Sure, I walk more, and get derided by my coworkers, and have to put up with horrible commuting hours, and have to carry an umbrella every time I go somewhere (just in case), and get demeaning looks from everyone in society...
But it has nothing to do with social classes, or social engineering, or rich vs. poor, because ultimately it's my choice. No one is forcing me not to have a car. No one's forcing me to walk everywhere. I still get the same opportunities that everyone else gets. I have yet to be turned down by any hot chick who has subsequently been picked up by a "responsible citizen" who owns their own transportation. There are no hidden systems at play.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
It's just like grocery store member cards, you start using them, you save right? Wrong, initially, maybe, but now, by using them, you're paying what you would have paid before the program existed and if you don't use the card you're hosed.
Same thing with this: You start out saving money, prices creep back up to normal. Those that refuse to submit to the program are hosed.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
That's not always true. I tend to be a bit of a speed demon, but the single accident I was in did not involve that at all -- I slowed down to watch an ambulance stop at a red light (to make sure he's not going through), and then as I was accelerating into the green, he pulled out. No lights, no sirens, nothing.
I slammed on my brakes and missed him by about 2 feet; looked right into the face of the EMT who was driving, because he realized what he had done and stopped in the middle of the intersection. Unfortunately, as I craned forward to look for his ambulance number, planning on filing a report on the bastard, a minivan rear-ended me, sending my head into the steering wheel.
The ambulance driver, a real charitable fellow, immediately threw his siren on and took off. The FD had to come clean up the chemical spill from the totalled minivan.
Would have liked a camera there.
darius
What are they thinking?
... or will their devices be rigged?
Not only is there obviously possible entrapment but what data exists that driving at the exact speed limit makes you a safer driver?
There are many other situations this will not cover: changing lanes without a turn signal, running lights, tail gaiting, driving *under* the speed limit (which can be just as unsafe), and drive-by shooting?
All of these could be more unsafe than going 10 MPH over the limit. Are they going to start monitoring that too? Will they forward high speeds to the police to fine you? What I would like to know is who will be monitoring the insurance agents' cars
Sure, just give the box registered in your name to your mother, or grandmother.
Alternatively, turn the box on only for "safe days", i.e. when you're driving slow because of traffic or alcohol consumption.
It's called a tiny wireless video camera. Haven't you seen the pop-up ads?
Mathematics is not a crime.
If you donate to their pension fund and put that little sticker they send you on your car, they'll be more inclined to let you go. It's not the get out of ticket free card that being a cop is, but unless you were doing something radical or they're WAY under quota, you'll likely just get off with a warning.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How does it know you're breaking the law, and where's my right of appeal? There's no mention as to the accuracy of the program. If - for example - I'm driving from a 40mph limit into a 30mph limit, and I hit 30 just before or just after the 30 sign post, do I take a hit on my premium?
What if they get it wrong? Do I have a right to appeal?
I complain regularly about speeding drivers, but this is not a good solution!
The ways of gods are mysteriously indistinguishable from chance.
They will first threaten Slashdot with a lawsuit, the news of that lawsuit gets out, then the instructions are mirrored. Then the hacking instructions will be the most downloaded thing on the internet -- more than porn.
Fight Spammers!
If they're going to start doing this they might as well put a governor on my car that rev limits it the the mph of the current road I'm on.
I speed all the time. Usually only 5-9 over but I push the limits.
I do 10-80s every once in a while getting onto the highway when no one is around. This can't be good for my insurance rates which are currently excellent.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
How useful would this be though, if you speed? I drive 20+ miles of highway each way on my commute. The speed limit is 65. Everyone is at 70+. What about neighborhoods where the limit is 30? As long as I don't have to send the data, I might consider it, but what is use if I'd never send the data since I speed.
The only people that would use this are the ones that can't, seniors that drive 55 in the right lane while people fly by them (at least you hope they are in the right lane).
How long until technology like this becomes madatory? How long until to drive you need to blow into a device to make sure you are not drunk and then the car won't go above the speed limit, etc?
I wouldn't mind being entramped a little, even if I had to pay more for my insurance...<G>
----
WWJD...For a Klondike Bar?
Actually, you're allowed to self insure if you can afford it - usually requires a decent amount of cash in escrow or something. However, would you rather drive knowing that if some dipshit hits you, you're screwed?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
> Stay the f**k out of my life
That is exactly what Progressive is doing by making it voluntairy. There is a big difference between having the choice to voluntarily share information about your life's activities (TripSense) versus actually being physically forced to share it against your will (George Orwell's "1984"). You are more than welcome to not use the device and continue paying the rates you are paying now if your privacy is worth more than the amount of savings you get by mathematically proving you are less likely to crash your car. Now when the government starts legislating that you must use this device against your will or when the government steals this data from an insurer and slaps them with a gag order (as has happened with the grocery discount cards to profile the eating habits of a potential terrorists), then you have something to worry about.
Now please explain to me how having a choice between lowering your rates in exchange for less privacy, or keeping the rates you already pay now, harms you. Or do you think that insurance companies should not pry into personal information to determine your risk, such as age, gender, neighbourhood, speeding tickets, and past car crashes?
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
I wonder if this machine will take into account the valid excuses for exceeding the speed limit(travelling the speed of traffic). It wouldnt be that hard to check all the cars closest to yours on the highway especially if all them things know where they are anyway and see if everyone is traveling that speed. If so then it shouldnt affect your insurance adversely.
If this is to be used exclusively to determine the distance travelled, you realize there is an existing device in every single car designed to so just this?
THE ODOMETER!
From the article:
"The technology will track some combination of when, where, how far and how fast they drive, giving insurers a way to reward low-risk driving."
RTFA.
Let's get this straight. Slow doesn't mean reliable and quick doesn't mean unsafe. At least until you get to the extremes... How do they propose to come up with any sort of metric which claims to know how safe a driver you are? By speed? When and where? I don't drive but it seems to me that this is as nutty as IQ as an intelligence metric.. Great for the lion tamer wannerbees but horrid for anyone else. In a city environment, how (and upon what rational evidence) are they going to tell who is crazy and who deserves a special bonus? Hmm. Corruption. We've got it...
Yeah ... that's it. Say I leave it plugged in for 2 miles a month. Surely they can't mandate that I drive a prescribed distance per month. I'll just unplug it for the rest of the month, and get the cheap rate....
Since the OBDII interfcae is fairly standard, it seems like it would be easy enough to build an interceptor to plug in between the device and your OBD port that just mad sure it capped the reported speed at some realistic value, like 73...
The thing about the device that seems stupid to me is it can't tell what kind of roads you drive on. I make it a point to almost never take the highway, so in my case an average reported speed of 75 would make me quite a risk! But from the standpoint of the insurance company it would be just fine.
I image if they were smart they would also measure things like accelleration, and figure out if you are hitting the gas too hard - sure you might save 5% for a while but I'll bet they could build up a set of data that would let them really increase rates later based on all kinds of wierd things detected from your driving habits (like panic braking too often).
I would only hope that it would have accelerometers to detect weaving of the car, for those people that just can't seem to figure out where the lanes are...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What people don't realize is that these little black boxes are already happening without people's consent. I work for a luxury car company, and this is standard. I should know. I'm the one that programs the replacements for when the originals breakdown. It has been for years. It's just a matter of time before it works it's way down to "low end" vehicles.
*slight crashing sound*
I really hope they sort out the police issue with this. Its not like they don't already take that black box data to use against you in court. I can see this becoming such a mess.
Guess what! I have good news: My wife just had a baby.
But dude, you took her to the hospital at 2 AM on a saturday.
Shit. I just lost a bundle on my car insurance.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Because someone will always find the hack around it. Some of us don't have OBDII cars, I have an 88' VW that doesn't even have proper EFI let along a way for them to check any of that great info.
Let them try and make me get rid of my car. It gets 30+mpg and can pass a smog test without trying and do all of this at 80pmh. Guess Dodge will have to kill it's entire truck line before my car goes away.
Top that off with the fact that any other means to track something in my car should be able to eb stopped with a nice led box. There is always a way around this kind of gestoppo crap. Too many of the people of this country will poke and prod these things untill there is a way to make them useless or unreliable. Hell, the car manufactures can't even make a good car anymore, these people can't build a hackproop box.
Trying to be different, just like everyone else.
This can be used for evil, hell anything can be used for evil.
But this could also save your ass in a lawsuit, especially if the other driver who hit you screams that you hit him at highspeed. and if it shows your speed was normal, and shows his (if he has one) was going at highspeed *POW* he's fucked.
however, this can also be used in the wrong as well, such as getting tickets for going over the speed limit at any time (and if you know anything about driving, you need to sometimes speed up because of someone on your tail or to change lanes, and other events, and uncommon events as well)
Do we know the criteria? Obviously speeding is gonna ba a no-no; "Sir, you lost 1% for each infraction, that is over a year...hmm 100% hence no discount"
Or even worse, your gonna get grannies driving along single lane carriageways at 5mph to keep their insurances as low as possible so that they can afford to heat their home come winter...
Anyway, someone somewhere will hack it and find a way to put linux on running divx's to the satelite navigation system...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
So if you're going 16 in a 15mph zone, and I drive into the side of your car by running a stop sign while going 15mph, you're at fault?
Awesome. Where do you live?
A few simple thoughts from a simple mind:
/.ers are welcome to continue driving 75 mph in residential areas.
1. In Minnesota, the test state, not all highways are posted at 70 mph. Using OBD II data, they will only know how fast you were going, and at what time. All you
2. Need to speed? Unplug the thing before those trips. The OBD connector is dead as a doornail when the car is shut off. Even if the thing does a continuity test, it's a very basic dongle to piece together.
3. If it can be read, it can be reverse engineered. Like we are usually victims of technology, right...
4. For a reasonable up front fee, I will help you find the names of other companies you can buy insurance from.
5. Speeding tickets are just a tax for going fast. This is just another part of the cost. Cowboy up, geek boy!
And switched to Geico, dropping my premiums by 350$ a year.
I've had no accidents (I was tboned when a guy ran a stopsign) and no tickets.
They dropped my homeowners 8 months later AFTER I switched to geico. No reason given.
Thing is I hear/read sentences starting with Would you give up your privacy in ... lately. And this doesn't make me happy in any (un)imaginable way.
It just starts by giving up a bit. And at the end there remains nothing to be given up anymore. This wouldn't bother me in any way, unless it's all about our privacy and personal freedoms (which were held sacrosanct in now seemingly forgotten ancient times).
I don't think I wish my children to grow someday into a world where freedom and privacy tend to loose their meaning.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Generic Response: "Let's Hack it" ...
The problem with this is that it can be found out, by relating the odometer to the speeds(higher speeds use and inefficiently larger amount of gas), and therefore, would be extremely easy to prove as insurance fraud, which itself is shitty, and is why insurance rates are so high! Like in my home state of New Jersey
This sig is o Unfunny o Funny
The only problem I can see with that plan is the device can tell how many miles you go, and if the total number of miles recorded disagrees with your odometer reading they might deny you coverage.
I wonder about people who do things like race cars on the weekends though, there have to be some valid reasons to disconnect the box without dropping coverage.
The whole thing is too screwey to me, no way would I get such a box.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People that drive significantly over the speed limit often cause dangerous conditions on the roads, no matter how "well" they are driving themselves. Other drivers don't expect someone to blow by at high speed. Drivers that are speeding usually have to make more lane changes, and lots of lane changes causes dangerous road conditions and can hurt traffic flow during rush hour.
With the VW it is physically impossible to go that fast (without solid rocket bosters welded to it), so it's no big deal. Honestly I would MUCH rather it drove it self.
The Ducati...How can I say this...it is not possible to restrain it to the speed limit in the town I live in (mostly 30km which I mostly ignore).
Obviously I don't use this "progressive" insurance though but I think this sort of thing for everyday drivers is no big deal, how fast do you need to go to work and to the store? I can choose not use it on my Ducati :).
Additionally I most add I have lived in the US and for the love of all that is holy Somebody needs to teach y'all how to drive! ;-)
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Depends on your driving habits. I speed. I also haven't (knock wood) gotten in an accident in 10 years, and I haven't received a ticked in four (in my province). Does that not make me a safe driver? I don't think so personally.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
if this is available in my area (i haven't read the article yet), i'd definitely sign up for it, as I'm usually a pretty decent driver, its worth it to me to save a few bucks every month...
now, if it knew where I was going, it might be a different story...
e to the pi i plus one equals zero
Say I have this device attached to my car and on the weekend go out to a dragstrip or road course to race. How will I prove that the time/speed entries showing high speeds were done on a dragstrip and not public highways? I would presume that if I remove the device for the afternoon while I am racing then there will be a gap in the logs that will be questionable. And please don't say "oh you just send them your timeslips and they will adjust your discount" because thats just rediculous.
how long before the system is hacked, and you can download highly optimized driving profiles ready to upload to your insurance company right off the web. :)
I signed up for a Stop and Shop card a week or so ago, because they offer about a nickel off their gas, which is priced two cents higher than the cheapest guys. So... three cents on gas. But, of course, the bored kid behind the desk doesn't even look at the application before handing me a card.
Say hello to "John Whorfin".
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Though worded a little agressively, I agree. Slower doesn't always equate to safer, sometimes people who drive a little faster are much more attentive. If one scans the road they can determine very well the intentions of other drivers and react accordingly.
Cameron, NOOOOOOO!!!!
*Screeeeee* *crashhhhhh*
You know what?
And if that is actually true, then the accident record should reflect it, and there is no need to place additional penalties beyond just checking the accident record (which, incidentally, already DOES assign a greater percentage of guilt to the driver that was speeding, if all other factors are equal.)
After all, a computer programmer is much more likely to be a computer cracker than a computer illiterate person, therefore if we can find evidence that you are a computer programmer, it is justified to discriminate against you as a high security risk for being someone who will crack into our systems and cause trouble. Sound fair?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
at one time too....
... 50% of every paycheck I get (after tax, etc), goes straight to insurance companies. Not giving me much else to live off of. I hate this. I only drive to and from work, I don't goof off, or do stupid shit. I just want to get back and fourth to work, and live happy. I can't stand having this tax on something that is now nesessary to live in this world. There is no way I could get back and foruth to work without my car. I havn't had an accident or wreck yet, and don't plan to. I'm only like 1-2 miles from work. I can't bike or walk it though, since the entire city is based around a highway that you get pulled over on for biking on or walking on.
Sig: I stole this sig.
This is silly. First the Xbox gets hacked, they E-Voting gets hacked, and Progressive thinks they can stick a little black-box in your car that won't get hacked so that all the data can be fudged?
This is a great idea! I plan to save lots of money on car insurance! I will suddenly become the safest driver in the US (according to my little black box). Never mind all my tickets and accidents.
I knew my BS in CS would come in handy eventually. Maybe I should just outsource hacking the black-box to India. Any takers? Do Indians get to read slashdot?
This couldn't be too terribly hard to fake. Get a BASIC Stamp or Atmel AVR board and build a fake ODBII (it is an "open standard", after all) interface. Write some code that fakes enough of ODBII and generates convincing driving patterns, and you've suddenly lost another loan to Ditech. No, wait, you've suddenly gotten a bonus on your insurance, and can drive as shittily as you'd like! Isn't technology grand?
I am not a fan of grocery convience cards and I tend to agree with the posts that lean towards something like this is a loss-leader from the insurance company, so nothing more needs to be said about that.
What i would like to see is maybe insurance companies giving kick-backs to those who do maintence on cars similar however not exactly like health insurance lord knows american health insurance doesn't have issues either. You get your car fixed/repaired or annual maintence (ala jiffy lube) of some kind you get a discount for keeping your car in good running condition. less obtrusive and certinaly would keep those bastard s blowing black smoke in rush hour traffic from bliding my view.
Rather than just speed, distance and time of day I think there are some more telling statistics the could record:
1. Acceleration/deceleration rates. Constantly starting from traffic lights at full throttle or stomping the brake just before turning in to a driveway? Higher rate.
2. Lights. Don't turn your headlights on at sunset? higher rate.
3. horn. constantly honking in traffic? Aggressive driver or poor planning. Higher rate.
4. Turn signals. Use them, get a lower rate. Don't your rate goes up.
To me those stats go more toward being a safe driver than simply vehicle speed. Speed doesn't kill, it's the sudden changes in speed that injure. If just speed killed, we should all be dead; we're all traveling a t perhaps 100,000 miles per hour all the time
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Having experienced the horrible traffic in New Jersey and NYC, I'd say catching people speeding is not exactly high on the list of priorities.
As for Boston, I guess the only reason people there buy cars that go over 35 mph is for out-of-town travel.
Grocery cards aren't a privacy invasion. I only put fake names on those when I fill them out. And they always take it with out validating. That most likely will not work with Progressive, so that data is directly related to you and your social security number.
You can be a very unsafe driver at 25 miles an hour, and a very safe one at 100.
I would like to see insurance companies invest some federal lobbying funds in trying to make the driving test a little more stringent, and improving driver education. Most drivers aren't aware that a 10,000lb hummer will take longer to stop than a geo metro, and have maybe 5 times the human squashing energy - even at 25mph.
What your saying is that speed differential causes a problem, and you are correct.
That means the person going 45 MPH on a highway is just as unsafe as someone going 75 MPH, assuming everybody else is travelling 60 MPH.
However, what you're also implying is that posted speed is somewhat irrelevant; what's more critical to safety is the average speed that drivers are actually driving.
If you're on some interstate in Montana where most drivers are travelling at 80MPH, it is a danger in the extreme to be going 55MPH.
But nobody seems comfortable to admit the obvious.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The speed limits have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with municipal revenue. Google "85th percentile" if you want to learn more.
Yeah, right.
Nothing goes faster than 299,792,458 m/s, right?
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
OBDII is a serial protocol that would be a bit harder to hack than the speedometer pulse wire.
Schematics to build the interface, and OS source code to write your own program available here
If you were really that bothered, you could build a passthru device, that only reported what you wanted. Or, record a couple of nice sedate drives to work, then play them back into the insurance companies scanner once a day.
This WILL get hacked.
If it is tested out first on politicians, police, judges, insurance execs, and highway patrol officers (just like new invasive style laws should be) with the information made publically available.
Also, the formulas for determining your insurance should be available to you so you can change your behavior accordingly.
This happened in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada.
The Mayor was caught drinking and driving. The police halled him into the station where the cheif of police promotely gave the keys back the Mayor and wished him on his drunken way.
At least the chief of police lost his job because of it.
Sad thing is the Mayor should have been thrown in jail and made someone's bitch. He was caught because he was seen leaving a party and driving his wife's car and someone reported him. He could not drive his own car because he already had one of those devices on it that you have to breath into to make it work. So the mayor knew he was drunk and planned how to get home drunk. When he was caught he bullied the cheif of Police into letting him go. A little bit too much power for the pea brain.
You guys really need a data protection act. Those grocery cards companies have to keep your data private and tell you exactly what they have on you whenever you ask, why, and how they process it - same with the car.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
That's why I'm thankful we have a (somewhat) free market. ...
If Progressive somehow eventually requires its customers to have this device, then so what? You can always switch to another insurance company.
Or go without insurance. Sure, it's illegal, but it is ultimately your choice, after all.
Or, you could go the most extreme route of all -- don't drive a car. Probably not a feasible solution out here in the Southwest, but if you live in a big city, sure, you could do it.
It's all about how much you're willing to sacrifice in order to give the corporations the finger.
"Sometimes", but mostly not. Usually the go-fasties are go-fastying just to get there, not from some innate love of the handling of the car. They are also drinking their coffee, changing their radios, dialing their cell-phones, and doing other distractive stuff.
All while go-fastying.
They're fast at taking your money, but they rarely even bother to return calls when you need them
Are you talking about insurance companies, investment brokers, or the government? It all seems to run together...
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
"I've got good news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance because I'm a 1337 hax0rz."
Just disconnect the thing anytime you feel the need for speed, then reconnect it afterwards. There's always a way around the system. Just like the grocery cards -- I filled out my grocery card application with a fake name and address, and haven't had a problem.
You're doing it too.
You can't stay on topic, you combine speeding with cell phones, eating in the car, and a bunch of stuff that makes bad drivers.
But you don't address the topic of speed.
If I drive at the speed limit and talk on my phone am I safe? But if I go 1 MPH faster than I'm unsafe?
Most people drive quickly to get there more quickly. Most people who drive slowly are people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time, but think they're good drivers because they're at the speed limit. In reality, they're the worst of the worst.
Another emotional pitch. Maybe it will play well in Florida
This device is no conditio sine quae non to get car insurance at progressive: Progressive sees it as an option to offer lower rates with limited risks on their side. And even if it were compulsory, you're still free to get your car insurance somewhere else...
If Progressive somehow got their hands on this kind of data without your consent, then we'd be talking about big privacy issues. Now it's just a company trying to lure clients from the ideal (ie: crash-free) demographic...
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
And New Mexico almost passed a law requiring all vehicles to be equipped with ignition interlock devices requiring the driver to test their breath every 10 minutes, regardless of the driver's record!!!
Insurance companies offering discounts for safe drivers is okay with me, even if it involves using tracking technology, but what about the state going after drivers before they even pose a danger to others?
"Some of us can control our cars so well that we can slide the ass end out, pick a daisy off the side of the road, spin it around, pick a daisy from the other side, and then keep going never breaking a sweat."
In the mean time, causing untold amounts of panic and side cause accidents. Plus, I don't believe you for a moment. Tuff.
"We understand the freedom to drive is the freedom to travel however and whenever we want."
No. You may not take a rocket-car down the street. No, you may not take an unmuffled car down a residential street at 2AM. Tuff.
Hmm?
Because statistically, talking on the phone while driving is almost as dangerous as driving while drunk, both are several hundred percent more likely to get you into an accident than speeding alone and neither are going to be picked up by any black boxes in cars. Speeding is only targeted because it's easy, not because it's a significant factor.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
It comes down to choice.
The place where speed sensing devices are obtrusive, unjust and downright wrong is when they are mandatory.
As long as you have a choice to NOT use it, even if it costs more is right. When you can't drive without one of these things legally, that is not right.
I don't believe in slowing down everyone just because a handful of people abuse the system, whether it is or is not for the public good.
Sound a little bit like the RIAA/MPAA and FAIR USE??? , dejavu man.
CATCH THE ABUSES AND LEAVE THE REST OF US ALONE DAMN IT!!
This goes out to all governments, police forces and policy makers out there at all levels of government.
From an Economics perspective, this idea makes a lot of sense. The car insurance company is dealing with imperfect information - they don't know exactly how much of a risk you are and how much money you are going to cost them.
Since this risk factor is the largest part of determining how much to charge for insurance (any insurance, including financial ones like options or futures contracts) they want to be able to better assess how much they should actually charge.
The part of this that's a "crime" is that the discounts they offer for not speeding - which is arguably for most drivers a small determinant of accident risk - are too small to be worth the social cost of giving up the right not to be monitored. This will fail in the market because other companies will still be able to offer competetive rates without invading privacy.
If they (and you) had a perfect estimate of the risk of you costing the company money, then you would be able to pay exactly how much you would be expected to pay in damages.
This generally isn't the case today, as many people pay more for the risk of bad drivers.
In a road full of people going ~5mph above the speed limit (which is most of them), it is impossible to do the following going at "only" the speed limit: .1% (1 second in just under half an hour), such as:
1. Change lanes
2. Merge (this one's even harder)
3. Stop quickly (for a deer, an accident, a child...) without causing an accident with the (dumb) driver behind you. I know full well that the other driver would be at fault in this accident, but it's still an uphill battle to get any amount of money out of another driver's insurance, assuming that they have any to begin with.
Furthermore, there are situations which require speeding up beyond your current speed, which can easily add up to more than
1. Merging in New Hampshire (people here just don't know how to do it) or Massachusetts (people here are deliberately malicious and seem to want to run you off the road), and most likely in many other states
2. Allowing others to change lanes (some of us DO actually do this)
3. Pass someone (I feel MUCH more secure with the weaving, possibly drunken driver FAR behind me than in front of me)
-Amalcon
The insurance companies are just adopting the same "guilty until proven innocent" mentality...
Last I heard, insurance companies often tend to use actuarial tables to decide things. That's because they're in business to make money.
In some US states, of course (e.g. Massachusetts), there are all kinds of wacky laws controlling what insurance companies can do. Much like government-mandated smoking bans in restaurants and bars, these laws would be unnecessary if they weren't at odds with reality: If there were a market for non-smoking bars, they would succeed on their own. In the absence of a ban, non-smoking bars are scarce as hen's teeth. QED, baby. QED.
Well, that's what we get for living in Cotton Mather's back yard.
So I wouldn't start hiding under the bed just yet, however repulsive this may be. And I would be more concerned about the inevitable irrational behavior of state legislatures than about the merely probable irrational behavior of people who do, after all, have to show a profit every quarter.
And while we're on the subject of presumption of guilt, notice the alarming number of posters in this discussion who seem to assume that speeding causes accidents. Personally, I doubt that. It's the comatose morons ambling along at 70 mph in the left lane who aren't paying attention to their fucking surroundings. If idiots like that didn't exist, there'd be no need for responsible drivers like me to do dangerous things like tailgate them at high speed, pass them on the right while throwing shit at 'em out the window, etc. Sometimes the only answer is to shoot the dumb bastard. Gunfire on public roads is not safe; those who leave me no choice but to open fire have a lot to answer for.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
There are lots of things I enjoy doing. I enjoy being a musician. I enjoy working on my computer. I enjoy running. And you enjoy driving. Fine. But I have to drive to get to work (it would be a two-hour trip on bike), so I think it's only reasonable that the roads be safe for people that need to get around. I don't consider myself an "ace driver" or something, but I work at being safe and alert, and I drive within the limits of my abilities, and defensively. It's that process that people I know that have fun driving aren't doing, and that's why I think fun driving makes roads unsafe.
What the hell? This counts as an invasion of privacy? What? Did the submitter or the editor even read the goddamned article?
The device records mileage and average speed. It has no GPS. It has no built-in maps. It has no compass. It has no ALIEN MIND CONTROL DEVICES.
This is an opportunity for an insurance customer to lower their insurance costs by voluntarily proving that they are a statistically safer driver. Nothing more. It is not an attempt by insurance companies to find out that you went to 3rd Street and Hennepin Avenue to have kinky sex with a stevedore and a transvestite hooker.
Good lord. Shut off the paranoia already.
Actually, you can get a grocery card without actually handing them the information sheet. The easy way to do it is to go up to the register, look at your keychain, say "crap, it looks like my card fell off". They'll get out a new one, swipe it for you, and tell you to turn in the form after they ring you up. Pay for your groceries and leave. Not at all hard. This insurance thing is a lot creepier. I'm not so much worried about Progressive, since they let you review the data before you send it, but the next step on the slippery slope won't be so friendly.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
... since you often ending buying more (buy 12, get 12 free!) and then throwing it away because it goes bad or you're just sick of eating it.
someone reverse engineers this thing? Remember the cue-cat?
"Wow, this guy drives one mile less than the speed limit at all times! Discount: Maximum!"
Go to http://insweb.com to see if I'm telling the truth. (btw, I am not affiliated with insweb in anyway, I'm just referring you to it since it was recommended by Consumer Reports two or three years ago)
"I wonder how soon it will be that everyone has one except those resigned to paying extra as with grocery 'convenience' cards."
As long as we're making sweeping generalizations, let's not forget the fact that there will always be stores that don't require the card, just like there will always be websites that don't require you to pay for those e-cards (hallmark.com), even while others do (bluemountain.com). I know Alarmnism is a fact of slashnot life, but there will always be competition that won't require these boxes, simply because they know there is a large consumer base of people like us out there who just don't want to deal with them.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Note that intrusion into your privacy is already part of insurance that you buy.
You have to put down your gender, age, ZIP code, make and model of the car you drive.
All of those items already go into determining what the insurance company will charge.
Interestingly, though, there's been some reluctance to explicity discriminate on some factors, such as race, because of the backlash that would ensue. I'm not even sure if gender discrimination on insurance rates is permitted everywhere.
Likewise, there was some hesitance about genetic profiling to deeply probe a potential client's propensity to develop disease, although a physical examination is required for a life insurance policy.
But reigning in the level of privacy intrustion is definitely where you need to provide input to your government. They're the ones that often require you to demonstrate you have car insurance before they'll issue you a new registration sticker for your car.
My favorite option, though, is to start using those infernal copyright laws to protect and to limit the distribution of data about me in the same way that those laws protect and limit the distribution of data about Britney Spears voice.
Any insurance company that sells a piece of that information to anyone without my permission should be fined.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Guess what? The right to drive is granted to you by your state, not the federal government.
I can see one logical conclusion to this
People who speed have more money than people who don't, therefore they can be charged more.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
Invalid point: Most if not all Buy One Get One Free offers ring up as half price at the register, meaning Buy one get one free items at $1 are actually 50 cents each. Try it next time you are at the grocery store. ;-) - don't worry - lot's of people don't know that.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
My state police go after real criminals. They also go after unsafe drivers. Actually, the state police catch a lot of drug smugglers and other criminals in routine traffic stops. Occasionally, they do stop obvious speeders like yourself, thus giving the majority an incentive to not drive as fast as they like. Traffic regulations are only as useful as they are enforcable.
It's great that you've driven 100+ with nobody around. I've done it too (hard not to, driving late at night in a German auto). But I don't for a second believe that it's safe. And I don't feel for a second that it's the police' fault if I get caught. After all, I've never lobbied for higher limits or anything.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
10-15 years ago, the cards were a trial new technology that offered consumers a discount. Now, you can't get a decent price at a grocery store without using a discount card. The "discount price" is actually the market price while the non-discount price is just a tax on people who don't adopt. What happens if this technology is adopted in the same manner? The only way you can get a decent price for auto insurance is by having a tracking device attached to your vehicle!
Something like a trial for this tracking technology may seem benign at first, but the potential consequences could be frightening. The worse case scenario would be that governments decide to make these devices mandatory.
Lately i've been seeing a lot of such offers that say "or buy one at regular price," although admittedly not in grocery stores (I tend not to shop at the ones that require cards).
The problem is that the once these things will be enter into circulation, the goverment will be able to legislatively require their use. Your lawsuit will then fail, as the courts would rule that you have no legitimate expectation of privacy in driving habits. It's very roughly the same doctrine which allows them to check the content of your bags on public transport - once the expectation of privacy disappears (perhaps through actions of the goverment itself), the "right to privacy" doesn't protect you anymore.
As a statistical body, drivers who have had their license for under two years, drivers who have had previous at-fault accidents, drivers who are unmarried, and drivers who are male are more likely to have an at-fault accident. Since they are more likely to be the problem, they pay more.
And yes, it sucks to be in one or more of those categories. Who told you life was going to be fair beforehand?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Since when is the velocity of my car, something which is directly observable externally, considered private? In't this a bit like saying to people, "Please don't look at me as I walk by. I don't want you to know where I am or whether I'm running."
Whether you're driving naked, provided it's not visible to other drivers, is your own business. What music you listen to, provided it's not audible from 50 feet away, is private (check your local laws for variations). The speed of your multiple-ton chunk of sharp metal, glass, and flammable liquid is not private.
Whatever Orwellian fantasy you may be indulging in probably falls short of what has already been true for years: "They" have been able to tell exactly where you are and what you are doing for a long time now. Most of us are too boring for it to matter. If you're going to be paranoid, do it properly.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
When cars drive themselves we will no longer have thousands of teens die driving every year, nor drunk drivers, nor sleeping drivers, nor cell phone yakking drivers. We will have a low accident rate which will be paid for by a flat tax on new cars. Robotic taxis will be availabe cheaply, so most people will not even own cars.
People will commute farther, get to their destination faster, and work less. Truck drivers will be out of work. Road construction and maintenence will boom. Energy consumption and pollution will skyrocket. Mail and other deliveries will be delivered several times per day by robots, allowing the return and success oof a Webvan-like grocer service.
Why fight progress? Track your car now!
I had the idea for black boxes in cars about 11 years ago. I made a prototype that had hooks to the light switches, gearbox, steering wheel, accelerator, etc, and a joystick that had a weight on top of the handle for measuring G forces. I think I made it in AMOS - some basic package for the Amiga.
I would have tried to push it through, but what does an 18 year old know about how to get ideas off the ground.
My idea was that emergency vehicles would have it fitted, as well as hire cars (who doesn't cane a hire car when they borrow it). The hire companies then could charge you for every mile that you went at 7000 rpm, or for excessive tyre wear due to people throwing their cars round corners. Also, insurance companies could offer discounts to people that have them fitted, as it would make working out what happened after an accident simple - just unplug the removable hard drive, and play it back at the insurance office.
Get your own free personal location tracker
... a few companies have tried putting similar devices in their company cars. The results have been similar for them all, less accidents, less maintenence cost and less fuel cost.
Don't mind me, I'm just carping the diem...
Back in May, I went to the Dayton OH Hamfest. The have many vendors there besides ham radio related. I stopped at one booth which was a company called Davis Instruments which sells a product called the "Car Chip". I was in an extended discussion with the proprieter.
The salesman mentioned that a lot of companies are requiring the device in company vehicles (I can understand since it is their property) and he even mentioned one company requires it in employee's personal vehicles as well. This is where the extended discussion came about. I asked him who the company was and he mentioned that the name cannot be divulged. The discussion went into privacy concerns such as it is none of your employer's business how you drive outside versus the emplyer's concern about you being an asset to the company.
I looked at the article and it was mentioned there was a bonus for not exceeding 75 mph. I am against the device myself. It is pretty bad that insurance companies can raise your rates without paying a claim such as getting a speeding ticket. I travel between Colorado and Indiana several times a year and when I drive, I end up driving through Kansas at 80 or 85 mph (70 mph SL) and usually drive about 80 mph in IL and IN (65 mph SL). Colorado does not recognize out of state minor violations (not yet!) which includes speeding. State to state reciprocity is another matter and is being pushed hard by the AAMVA with a legal instrument called the Driver's License Compact which is supposed to be replace by the Driver's License Agreement which requires all violations even down to parking tickets be on your driving record and also opens the door to reciprocity to foreign countries starting with Canada and Mexico.
A minor correction: radar detectors are generally legal throughout the USA. Last time I checked, there were only 4-5 states prohibiting their use. Unless you drive a tractor-trailer; I believe those are prohibited nationwide.
Remember when they banned leaded fuel? Didn't matter that your car was too old..
If you pollute too much in states that inspect.. you also loose...
It was either you conform or you don't get plates..
They can mandate this as well if they want, as they can pass anything they feel like.. 'we' gave them the power..
Only recourse is to get it struck down.. but it CAN ( and i expect WILL ) be mandated with in 10 years.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Let's suppose our theory is correct, and these people are more of a hazard than those that travel with the flow of traffic.
If insurance companies are smart, they will observe this and realize that they can't conceivably start charging a surcharge for slower drivers.
Their only possible response will have to be to quietly discontinue the program.
Let's assume for another moment that the opposite happens, and these drivers actually *are* statistically safer (I don't believe that for a second, BTW).
Clearly, and insurance company would have to be foolish not to offer a discount to these truly safer drivers. The cost of the program is a sunk cost. Once they've implemented it, if even 1% of their customers use the system and they can save money with it, they will continue using it.
So, we can prove our hypothesis by watching and seeing whether this program continues for any length of time.
And then, when the insurance companies finally learn how common speeding is, and sees that it's actually no big deal and no indicator of actual risk, and everyone's insurance rates go down while speed limits go up, everyone celebrates Big Brother is Our Brother Day.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The device I am talking about does have its own internal battery. It has a clock too.
These devices have been used by fleet operators to keep tabs on their drivers, and there are security mechanisms built into the device to show if there was any tampering. You cannot just "upload" a bunch of data the day you need to turn over your driving record, you cannot just disconnect the unit for 3 months to underreport mileage. Gaps will appear and logs are kept of the device usage aside from the mileage/speed report (disconnects, connects, downloads, settings changes and memory clears are all recorded). Besides, the car still has an odometer that is recorded at service intervals and emissions testing.
I didn't post to really discuss how to hack the device, I just thought I'd share what I thought the insurance companies were using for their pilot program. This device sounds exactly like what was described in the article.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
All I know is that a large part of the populous (senior citizens) get in a large number of accidents yet also drive very slowly. If they really wanted to develop a system that would reward safe drivers they would have to find a way of mesuring the driver's reaction times (the most lacking part of an elderly person's driving skills).
A ricent side note: The NTSB approved a reccomendation standardzing the "black boxes" in cars like they have in trains and planes, although it stopped short of requiring them. I had herd this was prompted by an accident in Santa Monica, CA last year, where an elderly man crashed into the farmer's market there. Supposedly, he inadvertently stepped on the gas pedal when he was going for the break.
I wonder how many discounts this gentleman would have been in for had he been using the system mentioned above, (i.e. a system which gives discounts simply for driving at or below the speedlimit).
Life isn't safe but as long as I'm free to do as I please I will push it when I can. That's just me. If I sat around thinking about how dangerous everything was I'd never leave my house and what's the point of living like that? I've gone down recently at 55mph and because I wear all the safety gear I was relatively unscathed and was able to ride my bike home. My view is you can't learn anything about yourself or what you're interested unless you push it. Laws are meant to be broken be it the shift key, markers on cd's, or speeding....
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
"It's the reason we don't have automatic pilot on cars yet..."
What are you talking about? My car has cruise control. Isn't that like automatic pilot? In fact, as I post this, with my cell phone modem, I am driving down the Interstate on cruise control with my laptop in my lap. This technology has existed for...
OH CRAP...
[lost carrier]
Unknown host pong.
Now that's an odd choice of moderation for the parent post.
Yeah, yeah, I know, -1 Offtopic...
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
A welcome improvement - folks who eat poorly, smoke, and don't excercise will get their health insurance rates jacked up.
I'd agree with that far more than the corporate big-brother in my car.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Bully for you, man. Some people don't like anarchy and consider the fact that "life isn't safe" all the more reason to create pockets of relative safety in what would otherwise be extremely inhospitable environments. Like on an open highway: some people worry when a motorcyclist thinks he's Peter Fonda, drives like a moron and lays out in front of their car at 55 mph. They worry because there's now a heavy piece of machinery and a meat puppet they're going to hit full speed and it's not even their fault. People who worry about silly shit like that pushed for a government that could create laws and raise taxes to pay for police to enforce them. These laws were made so that your deathwish doesn't impact others and they aren't "meant to be broken" any more than the laws that maintain the roads so you can drive recklessly on them.
There's thousands of ways you can endanger your life without incurring fines or possible jail time by driving like an obnoxious fuck. Pick one of them. America's a big prosperous place full of adventure and I'm sure you can maintain your bullshit "Fight Club" worldview without endangering other drivers.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Anarchy? "Fight Club" bullshit? none of the above.
You speak as if you're a scared little bitch and are offended by people who like to test the waters and not trust the status quo. It's about actual visceral experiences, not living through other's experiences.
As for thinking I'm Peter Fonda I think not. First off he rode a bitches bike:) Second off anything I try that risks wiping out is done on an empty highway not at local intersections or school crossings. I do admit to doing endos/stoppies at lights but it's a mastery and involves no danger really and people love it when they see. If you don't believe it I don't give a fuck and no one is in danger at all.
It sounds as if you believe in an Orwellian ideology. Shit to make the world extra safe lets not do anything that might be the slightest bit unsafe, put cameras every 5 ft to observe safety, pump unknown substances into our food to make us feel safe in a psychologial sense, and in general forgo all personal rights because big brother knows what's best in terms of safety for us right?
Fuck that
You can continue to not jay-walk when the road is empty, buy monopolized media from companies who still own the product but only let you license it, and in general let some book written by man, but said to be authored by a supreme being, meant to control you continue to control you , moralize, and scare you into conforming to what other people think is right, wrong, or indifferent. I only the other hand will just try to live without imposing myself on anyone and also not endangering anyone by the way I ride my bike.
Aren't you late for a PTA meeting or something?
DOn't you have your prescriptions to pick up? Paxil, Viagra, Immitrex, Psuedoephedrine, Propecia, Prozac, etc.? yea I bet you're livin' the American dream and fucking maxed out on your c.c.'s, mortgage, and all that other shit you get into by subscribing to that grand ole "white picket fence" bullshit theory for lack of a better term.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
> The reason higher speeds are discouraged by insurance companies is a matter of simple physics--momentum is equal to mass times velocity.
So why not charge obese people more for insurance than skinny people?
Honestly, I think that if this country (I'm assuming we're discussing the US here) required you to pass a SERIOUS driving test to get a license, that would probably be the biggest step towards reducing traffic accidents -- not lowering the highway speed limits. When I got my license, I thought it was a joke. I can't believe you need about zero skills to be allowed to drive on the public road system.
> Guess why the drinking age is 21?
I thought it was because the federal government forced most states to adopt the law with threats of cutting certain funding.
Listen up.
I don't smoke, so why should I pay more for health insurance because you do?
I don't eat lots of red meat, saturated or trans fats, and I eat lots of vegetables. Why should I pay more for your McSupersized diet?
I don't eat soda, candy, or sugar. So why should I pay for your rotten teeth and diabetes?
I don't speed, I don't weave in traffic, and I honor traffic signals. I'm not in such a huge hurry to chop ten seconds off my trip everytime I get behind the wheel. So why should I pay for your unsafe driving habits?
Fact is, I'd be happy to install one of these if it saved me money from subsidizing your bad behavior.
The freedom to be let alone is fundamental; so is the freedom to not pay for the behavior of idiots.
Are there any non-profit insurance companies out there? I ask because i find it annoying that we have a tax mandated by the government, yet paid out to private entities.
I do not doubt that insurance companies will try and mandate this as soon as they can convince enough to use it, and it becomes relatively inexpensive to implement en mass.
I would rather spend my money on a non-profit company--i feel they would be less likely they'll ream you trying to make every last buck they can.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
Trade your grocery card for a friend's. Repeat regularly. Most of the cards I have seen do not have a name or other identification. Average their statistics away by trading your card once in a while.
I remember when it was announced that light had been "slowed down" in an ion plasma or something but I figured it was just taking longer to be re-emitted and was travelling at "c" while in the vacuum between the particles. As for going faster, are you presuming an infinite energy supply? Or have I been trolled?
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
What sort of weirdo cares that much about data detailing how fast they drive such that they wouldn't want to save 25% on their car insurance!
I think of much more interest was the second one in the article, detailing Norwich Union's plan to track cars via GPS and offer discounts to cars 'that spend more time in safer areas'. That seems like more of an invasion of privacy rather than some random numbers detailing how fast someone is going.
Provide better public transportation/alternate transportation for the elderly. Many elderly I know no longer enjoy driving they find it to difficult and stressful. They all will hold onto their license until the DMV pry's it from their hands because without it they have no reasonable means to get food, visit freinds and family, or receive medical care.
Of course, you're right. Anybody who doesn't brake laws for no other reason than hubris MUST be addicted to prescription drugs and be for an Orwellian society.
For somebody who claims to be about visceral experiences, you sure seem to archetype people fairly easy.
But touché. I pulled the same shit on you. If you MUST know, I too believe in a healthy amount of skepticism. But that doesn't mean automatic distrust, automatic rejection of tradition or the assumption that the status quo is fundamentally wrong. I believe in analysis first and action second. This is the essence of critical thinking. Hating something solely on its associations is just as dogmatic as liking something for the same reasons. Use some goddamn judgment, man, and don't assume somebody is a square just because they think going on to one wheel speeding on a device weighing 800 lbs or so is a bloody stupid thing to do, even if you THINK you're good at it.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
It's a suppository!
You can't handle the truth.
Wonder what the penalty would be for hacking this system? Can't see it being any more than fraud...and that's if you get caught :- )
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
I am for anything that makes the highways go faster.
You can't handle the truth.
Heck, why not double it up and provide a break for those who vote? I know that Australia imposes a fine on those who don't vote. We've all heard the slogan that it's not only your right to vote, but your duty. There's nothing that says you have to vote for anything, just show up to the voting booth and turn in a blank ballot, collect your receipt and move on with life.
There may be some flaws in this idea, but my gut says that it would improve the state of affairs. None of this would bar someone from taking part in the process, but instead would make it slightly more lucrative to take part.
While we're at it... Why not give welfare recipients a couple months to study and pass such a similar test or have their benifits cut? (but not eliminated.)
"My religion is to live --and die-- without regret." -- Milarepa
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Ok first off I don't ride a chopper. I ride a sport bike hence my bikes weight of 357lbs and not 800lbs. Since my bike is 443 lbs lighter than you perceived does it make me more safe? :P
Yes I was throwing your comments and categorizations back at you if you must know. None of my beliefs are on autopilot. They come from real life experiences but trust me I am neither anti-social nor psychotic. I have a very healthy view in questioning of my day-to-day existence. I without a doubt analyze before forming a conclusion and acting upon it if need be.
I will say for the most part the status quo sucks. Think about it. We're on slashdot which is about technology, learning about it, and overcoming the obstacles to take it to the next level. In other words it's about always putting the hand in the face of the status quo and taking it further.
You might think endos/stoppies are stupid but to a lot of us it's fun and nice parting shot. How does it go? I think therefor I am...regardless of what you or anyone else thinks:D
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
Drivers who avoid the most dangerous times -- midnight to 4 a.m. on weekends -- get bigger discounts than those who don't.
Wtf?!
I have worked 2nd shift for the past two years.
2nd shift for me means I don't get off work until midnight. I would penalized, regardless of how well I drive, because of my WORK SCHEDULE?
This is the kind of stuff that turns even the most reasonable poster into a potty-mouthed troll. I shall refrain. I'll also be cancelling my Progressive policy and going with someone else.
One thing I've learned over the years with car insurance is, *never* stop shopping around on it! The average insurance agency fully expects that customers won't stay with them for an average of more than 4 years anyway. They're out to make most of their profits on the people who are too lazy to switch (or falsely believe they're eventually going to save money by sticking with the same company for a long time).
Basically, I wouldn't even consider renewing an existing policy with whoever I used the last time around, without first calling for at least a few new quotes.
Also, it's tough to generalize and say "company X is expensive/a rip-off", because as I've bought and sold different vehicles, my results varied greatly with the same companies.
There are lots of factors in coming up with your rate, and some are totally unrelated to your driving history or type of car you drive. Some agencies take your credit history into account, and others (EG. American Family) don't use it at all.
I just switched *to* Progressive, and I have a very clean driving record. Why? Well, I was real happy with my previous choice, but I'm in the middle of a messy divorce where my (soon to be ex) wife took my sports car and subsequently sold it to somebody. My insurance co. it was insured with refused to let me remove the car from my policy though, because they weren't certain my wife didn't still have it in her possession and wasn't still driving it around! They demanded I fax them proof in the way of a letter from the Dept. of Motor Vehicles stating the car was re-titled to another person. Well, the DMV said "Sorry pal! That's confidential information and we can't give you a letter like that. Yes, your car was sold, but no you can't have any info about it."
It seemed to me the only sensible thing to do was cancel my policy and sign up with someone new. Progressive had a fairly competitive rate for the SUV I drive right now, and if they raise my rate next time around - fine. Away they go too....
We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. -Hillary Clinton
Your sig: Is that an actual quote of Hillary Clinton? Can you provide a source? Hopefully, this would settle several long and tiring debates about helmet laws, socialized medicine, the future first female president, and democracy between my wife and I. I apologize to those who find this off-topic, but I find this potential quote to be Stuff that Matters(TM).
I was drunk when I logged on, but I am sobering quickly. :(
Looks good for your age..
for the most part the status quo sucks...We're on slashdot which is about technology, learning about it, and overcoming the obstacles to take it to the next level. In other words it's about always putting the hand in the face of the status quo and taking it further.
Wow, that's kind of strange way of looking at it. Think: where does the technology you use come from? The status-quo. Why was it created? To serve the status quo. And who will have more of an effect on the future of computing -- the hackers attempting to subvert or bypass the status quo, or the engineers working within it?
If the status quo didn't "suck," things would be different. Many things would be much worse. Without a technology industry driving micronization, computers would be massively underpowered and the software that ran them massively underfeatured. We wouldn't have digital cameras. We wouldn't have ubiquitous internet.
Supplanting and subverting the status quo is not the answer. Working to direct its course sensibly is what we should be doing. All this nail biting paranoia is defeating what could be a fabulous sophist movement in the technology sector. The only thing stopping the 2600 crowd or the Slashdot crowd from taking over the industry and remolding it in their own image of openness and tinkering (something the average user NEEDS to learn; don't be afraid to break it) is a needless sense of competetion. There is no war going on here...and turning a minor thing like optional and easily defeatable DRM technologies or choice of operating systems into a knock-down, drag out fight against everything that's wrong with society is not only extreme, it's psychotic.
Remember: an engineer is nothing but a hacker who works shorter hours. You got to distance yourself from the details of the implementation, or else the details will become the implementation.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I think you misunderstood what I was getting at - rather than tampering with the data held, you create a box that you hook to your OBD port, then the insurance box connects to it via an ODB port you make yourself - all the OBD data then passes through except for speed (and probably RPM to make it look real) which you cap at whatever limit you desire. So to the insurance companies box it seems that you never exceed whatever limit you choose to set.
This would be VERY easy, as the protocol to gather data from ODB ports is wide open. Or if you wanted to get really creative you could simply leave the device off your car and fake a few months of driving data in whatever way you wanted - perhaps as a challenge record your driving habits in Gran Turismo or GTA3 instead.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In the event of an accident, you take the insurance companies device and toss it into the weeds. And even that's only if you were speeding in a way that disagreed with what you were feeding the device in the first place.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I did mean official racing, like the SCCA or BMWCCA. Those are completey above-board and OK for insurance. In fact I think you could probably argue that people attending these events have a much smaller likleyhood of being in an accident due to far greater driving skills than the average person.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have to say that your comments about Supplanting and subverting the status quo is not the answer. Working to direct its course sensibly is what we should be doing. were something that I'd agree with. In your previous responses it was all about confrontation and confronting a person and/or his/her ideas that seemed the polar opposite of your's but now you see we can agree on something that has to do with something that we are both interested in.
:D
Without coming off as being cerebrally ostentatious and I'm sure it's something you wouldn't accuse me of I find your last response to be something to ponder and kick around rather than a baseless, witless personal attack on a mere stranger in this virtual world. You see I am fully capable of deep thought pertaining to the intrinsic parts of our lives. I don't live to "fight the man" or epitomize the typical rebel without a cause.
What I take in and ingest daily as to experiences, interactions, and witnessing the sad and lost sheep in the matrix effects and helps mold my own personal outlook and ideology. I have my own personal philosophies and I believe in them more than anything else because they get me through life more than any book, or bullshit, or any sense of false hope that most buy into. I think if we were stripped of all of our worldly material possessions and think of what really mattered then we would see that our belief system coupled with an actual belief in them is all we have ever had.
You or anyone else can walk through life and buy into whatever is being sold at present as to religion, lifestyle, or whatever other trivial pretense but I just can't and won't. I'm no utterly unique, ubiquitous, soul because I am original like everyone else:) We're all part of the same compost heap. I'd like to think that I am altruistic at times even though I might not put that out for everyone is does happen.
I didn't mean to expound infinitely on what I believe or who I am so I'll shut up in a minute after a few more thoughts...
I am not as shallow as you think
I am not as mindless as you perceive
I am capable of independent thought based on analyzing and processing the data which pertains to each and every situation
I am also capable of coming off as none of the above and am quite comfortable with that too
I enjoy a good troll/flamebaiter like a lot of people but this has evolved into something better and I am surprised at that.
Now Piss Off
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
It seems like a good idea at first, but then you have to reason it out. I have a 1972 Dodge Dart - my first car. It is only equipped with lap belts. It came from the factory that way. I get pulled over at least every tenth time I drive it. They can't pull for just seat belts in my state, so they always come up with some kind of lame excuse for pulling you over, I.E. you were "swerving" from lane to lane, etc. Now, I'm not against the police in any respect, as my dad has been a cop for over 30 years and I have grown up in a cop household and these have been the people I have known since I was a child. But there has to be a point where you have to tell "big brother" to take a hike and let you have some privacy. I like the fact that my father is on my side in this respect. He refuses to pull people over for seat belts and other minor infractions that should be left up to the driver. Hooray for decent police officers who respect people's privacy!
Me fail English? That's unpossible!
...if it's GPS based and just requires batteries or a 12v feed, it'd retrofit to anything. you'd presumably have it installed with a sealed tag to show if you take it out and put it in granny's car whilst you're off street racing, but there'd be no reason it couldn't be fitted to *anything*.
Insurance companies wanting to make sure you are not breaking the law in order to insure you!
The unreasonable bastards!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Parking insurance is a low-cost insurance used to 'protect' your investment in a parked automobile from theft, vandalism as well as damage from falling trees, being ran into and such.
...and as far as I understand, the Insurance Industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the United States. For a time, I was a licensed Life Insurance Salesman and there were so many things that I could and could not say or suffer upwards of $10,000 dollars in fines and spend at least a year in prison. Those same types of regulations applied to home, auto and other property insurance.
It is used to cover a vehicle that won't be driven on a regular basis. Some times this type of insurance allows for *very* limited driving, such as weekend use or possibly emergency use and it had better be emergency use. It's sort of like 'recreational autmobile' used on Classic automobiles.
It should cost you significantly less then 35% of the value of your vehicle.
Of course, that might not be available in your state. If you use it, but are out driving on it and get into any sort of trouble, you can be significantly screwed. I would never recomend, suggest or othwerwise consider using such insurance on a vehicle that I drive daily. Depending on where you live, that could possibly land you jail time for Insurance fraud.
If you are educated about insurance, then you really can't be ripped off.
Read up on the Insurance Laws in your state and grill the heck out of your Insurance Agent regarding all of the types of Insurance available. Call around, don't be an uneducated consumer and you won't be taken advantage of. If your state allows 'Parking' or 'Weekend Driver' Insurance and your agent isn't offering that to you, check with different companies until you find one that offers that in your state.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Freely giving something to someone else is not a loss of freedom. The insurance is something they give oyu oand you must give something in return; both sides benefit. You are certainly free to not do so. Government mandated "black boxes" in your cars is a loss of freedom. (Which, BTW, the NTSB is trying force on us.) Insurance is a privelege. If you don't want it then don't buy it. (Yes, I know the government requires you to buy it, but that is a case of lost freedom just like forced black boxes.) When you don't buy it then you are no worse off than you were before. So how is trading value for value in a mutually beneficial arrangement a loss of freedom? Unless you have a right to other people's labour and thus can claim a loss of rights when you don't get those products handed out to you, there is no loss on your part.
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
Glad I'm cheaper to insure 'cuz my car's black, tho.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Amen, brother.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
To do this cost thing right, you have to examine risk, because not all dollars are created equally. Same reason I'd bet $1 with 50/50 odds to win $1.10, but I wouldn't risk $50,000 to win $55,000 - playing odds in your favor is worth it if a dollar lost is of the same value as the dollar gained. But when doubling my money isn't as good as getting cleaned out is bad, you don't take the bet.
In other words, I'd have to be rich to self-insure.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Since I am currently a Progressive customer (until later this month - I switched to Geico!) I used their website's feedback form to address this issue and here is the response I got:
---------
Ms. ********, thank you for your e-mail.
Thank you for contacting Progressive about our new TripSense auto discount
program. We would like to address your concerns about TripSense by providing
some additional information about how the program works.
We recognize some customers may not wish to share data with their insurance
company and that's OK, that's why we offer consumers a choice of TripSense or
our "traditional" auto insurance product. Progressive's TripSense program is
completely voluntary and offers a way to earn discounts that have never been
available before; our customers can decide whether they want to sign up for the
program and if they wish to share their driving data.
Progressive will use vehicle usage data only to provide discounts. Vehicle
usage data will not cause a customer to pay a higher rate or their policy to be
canceled.
The TripSense discount is based on how much, how fast and when the vehicle is
driven. The TripSense discount is heavily weighted on mileage and time of day.
In fact, the speed component makes up only 5 percent of the possible 25 percent
discount.
You can find more information about our TripSense program online at
tripsense.progressive.com.
It is our goal to provide you with prompt, courteous and accurate service.
TripSense demonstrates Progressive's commitment to using technology in
innovative ways to reduce the cost of car insurance, especially the rates
customers pay.
If we may be of further assistance, please respond to this e-mail.
Sincerely,
Dawn Sawyer
Progressive Internet Service Specialist
webmaster@progressive.com
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series