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Pay-As-You-Drive Car Insurance
Sipos writes "The BBC has a story about pay-as-you-drive car insurance. There is not that much detail about how it would work but it seems that a black box in your car monitors your position using GPS. This information is then reported to a insurance company computer which then works out which roads you used and then bills you accordingly. The article seems to suggest that this will make insurance cheaper. Surely this will only happen for people who drive on dangerous roads less than average, after all there are no less accidents as a result? It also makes no mention of the potential for abuse of privacy this could involve. Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?"
I'm already thinking of hacks... I wonder how hard it would be to spoof GPS signals? Of course, 5 cents worth of aluminum foil over the sensor would work, too. Only if they correlate their measure of distance versus the car's odometer would they know if the system had been duped.
They could also know if you were speeding on a certain stretch of road and up your premium accordingly. "We noticed that you failed to signal your intention to turn 18 times last month. Tsk tsk. Oh, and apparently you've been eating at McDonald's quite frequently, so we've increased your health and life insurance premiums, too."
Recipes for geeks -- no meatloaf, we promise.
I think my insurance rates are as low as they're going to get, as little as I drive. I think I'll pass on this one.
Why don't they just take down the miles of the odometer.
Well that sucks for me as I tend to always go above the speed limit. Sometimes a mile above, sometimes 20. I'm pretty sure they would be actively checking the way you drive and if you drive too fast, be prepared for some rate increases.
So what happens when I make a wrong turn in LA and end up in watts or compton, does my insurance skyrocket?
people will alter their behavior if they are being charged this way. Just as you will use less electricity if it is being metered rather than an "all you can eat" plan.
Here is my idea. Pay as you go sex. If you last 3 minutes you pay for 3 minutes only.
If you smash into a tree, it's your own damn fault if you don't have insurance.
Dear government, please stop telling me how to spend my money.
Thank you.
A good thing about this...
Every one hates being charged for bad drivers (in the UK this is especially true, trust me, having the slowest car ever and having insurance that costs more than the car ever will).
It means that can basicly monitor your speed, they can then see the fast, and the slow drivers (and slow being dangerious on motorways (freeways?)).
This would mean that they would be able to see your REAL driving skill. Surely this is a good thing, but like always the public will throw it out due to "privicy". (Bit like the idea of IDcards? only people that complain are the criminals with something to hide).
Just my 2bits...
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Why not? It makes perfect sense for people who use their car only every once-in-a-while. Why should they pay as much as someone who is commuting from LA to SF twice a week?
I think many people feel they've nothing to hide and would opt for this payment plan if it can save them significant amounts of money. And as long as it is voluntary (i.e. you can always go with a flat rate), I don't see a problem with it.
The article seems to suggest that this will make insurance cheaper.
I saw the BBC's news report on TV on this a couple of days ago. They did say that this is how the insurance companies are marketing it, but the reporter came over as being pretty sceptical of it actually doing so.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?
Since when has the general public made it a bpoint to care about their Privacy over Money? You think that the existing lack of privacy occured because the masses didn't have a choice, or were just lazy and took shortcuts allowed by corporations?
Based on my experience with insurance companies, I don't really expect to see them use this to lower premiums, just to raise them and have excuses to terminate policies.
A great example of the shadiness of insurance companies happened a few years ago in Washington State. The insurance companies lobbied heavily to limit driving privliges for those 16-18 (limited number of minors as passengers, restrictions on driving after dark and whatnot) citing studies saying that it'd reduce the accident rates by a significant margin, which it did. The problem is that they never adjusted the insurance rates downwards to reflect these lowered accident rates, effectively giving their profits a big boost.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
I live in Canada, where the costs of car insurance have risen dramatically over the last few years. I drive a 12 year old car, have a perfect driving record and am over 25. I didn't even ensure it for collision (which is the most expensive part of the premium). And still, I pay over $2000/year for insurance.
Basically i'm willing to sell my soul to the devil for cheaper insurance. If the devil wants me to drive with a black box, then so be it.
I'd imagine that much like pay as you go cell phone service, pay as you go car insurance will only be economical to very few individuals...maybe someone in a very large city who only drivers their car a few times a month.
Can you imagine all the different things they would see you do that could cause them to increase the rates? Driving more than 500 miles a month, driving after 10pm, driving home from a bar, speeding any amount, rolling stop signs, driving in the rain or other poor weather, driving in heavy traffic....insurance companies are already a little crazy about the rates, and unless there was some maximum monthly cap I could see this being bad for a lot of people.
Not to mention its just plain creepy.
Smoking crack is good kids.
The more you know, the less you understand.
This is a near-total dupe of Big Brother in Your Front Seat, from 10 August.
I think Michael's RAM chips need a parity check. There's a failed chip in there somewhere...
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
But of course.
I currently pay $1500 a year, with a PRISTINE driving record, for a 100% paid-off nissan, and a 2002 Jeep wrangler (still making payments).
I drive ZERO miles to work, and average 10-20 miles per week.
Why I am paying this much for insurance? Because I'm living in a state with bad statistics. I would GLADLY let my insurance company monitor my driving, or lack thereof, to save money (if the money's right, of course)
I would welcome such a scheme if I still had my car - I finally got rid of it about a month ago. Actually the council kindly stuck some "abandoned car" stickers on it, then towed it away a few weeks later, but that is another story :D
It was costing me 500 GBP per year to insure a 15 year old Ford Sierra for 3rd party fire and theft. The car was only worth a few hundred max.
I rarely drove it - maybe 500 miles a year.
Under these conditions, I would welcome only being charged for how far I drive.
"...but our GPS log show that you were travelling at 56 mph moments before the accident. We're going to have to decline your claim..."
People don't seem to realise that an insurance company's sole purpose in existence is to NOT pay out on claims. Otherwise how do they increase their profits?! Anything that can help them reduce the percentage of claims that are paid out will be snapped up.
gadgetophile.com
When I moved to an area where insurance is cheaper, from the high-traffic centre of town to a community ten minutes outside the city limits but still less than a twenty from work, my insurance went up because I was driving further. When I later moved back into town, it went up again because, although my drive was now five minutes, traffic is higher in town. Is this the kind of "cheaper" they mean? It usually is.
In two words - YOU BET!
this sounds like something the business sector and rental companies may pick up on first, with private citizens possibly coming in later.
Hot, fresh pizza in only 30 minutes or your money back! Um, that pizza will be $195 - we have to pay for the insurance.
The whole point of insurance is that it's heding a lot of bets, taking a bunch of risks and average it out over the long time. The more insurance knows about each individual driver's records/risks, etc., the less the whole concept of insurance works out. If you drive poorly, they charge you higher or won't insure you, so you may as well not have insurance. if you drive well, they theoreticaly won't charge you as much... either way, if they have perfect information about you, then they'll charge you exactly what your expected expenses are.. plus a profit for them. Which means in a world of perfect information like they're suggesting, you end up basically paying them pure profit... So in the end, only they win.
People don't have a problem with their credit card companies tracking every cent they are spending, so why should they have problems with this?
...is what the weasels will say, then the sheep will start bleating it, then the pigs will snort at all the other animals that don't want to go along.
here ya go ...
I was just looking at the COTA website (bus system in Columbus OH) this morning for possible bus routes to work after I move next month. If I am no longer driving everyday I sure would prefer not to pay insurance.
+1 screw the man mod points!
"Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?"
No.
Not on your nelly.
I hope that's clear enough.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Actually you'll also pay a lot because your car was parked in a large city when you weren't driving it. It's more likely to be stolen there than out in the middle of nowhere.
"Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?""
How about a health monitoring system? Every time you eat at McDonalds, your health insurance goes up.
Hack your way to lower premiums!
Art Schools Dietzilla
This puts the insurability of you and your vehicle in the hands of the insurance company and their computer systems.
At least under the current method, you can be pretty much assured that you and your vehicle are insured wherever you go and, for most purposes, for whatever happens.
Under a computer-based GPS method, what happens if the insurance company institutes no-insured zones - those areas of highest risk that if you choose to travel through them you do so at your own risk?
Or, what happens if you have an accident, and your black box communicaates with the others black box, and they both contact the insurance company and the police regardless of whether you wanted them to?
Or, what about when you submit your claim and the insurance company shows that there is no record on their computers of any report from your car or its GPS that you were even in that area, or involved in an accident - conveniently deleted, or otherwise?
Personally, I like the idea of just signing an insurance contract where I know the umbrella coverage will follow me no matter what. I like the freedom of submitting my claim or not. And I like the fact that they're obligated to pay once I do.
Question: "Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?"
Answer: Yes. People are stupid and short-sighted.
However, for some reason it seems highly unlikely that they would ever do it this way.
"Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?" Yup, as long as it saves 'em money, they'll try anything.
Get me a meat pie floater!
So, you work out how safe I was after the fact?
How about if I don't crash, you assume I was completely safe and don't charge me anything?
No? Oh, I bet you just want to use this to make me pay MORE?
This is just a repeat of a story http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/10/16 49252&tid=158&tid=126 from last week. Since nothing is likely to be said here that wasn't said before, all you lurkers may as well read that one instead.
first rule: Companies exist to make profit. Making things cheaper doesn't mean more profit (only in special scenarios). The "cheaper" for some, will most likely result in a lot more expensive for others (and everything added up: a bigger profit for the company).
Second thought: Installing such things in each cars is going to cost money. How will such expenses make insurances cheaper?
This is one lame signature, please read the message above instead.
Say I get on this plan, and my rate goes through the roof because I either drive too much, too fast, too far, or whatever criteria they use .. when I switch back to the flat rate plan, I absolutely guarantee they will use my own 'data' against me in determining my flat rate plan when I switch back.
.. and in the end, would I really be saving money or stamping myself as a high risk driver for life?
Where does using this data stop
The problem is that this is the stealthy way that a highly invasive monitoring system gets introduced to society. Like CCTV, it's introduced for 'your benefit'. Just like CCTV it will gradually become standard and expand far beyond it's original purpose. I imagine not too long into the future it will be very hard to get insured without a tracker fitted to your vehicle.
Then whats the next step up from there? RFID embedded on to your name badges to ensure you are taking proper breaks and are an efficient worker? House security systems show your teenager is bringing a boyfriend home during the day? It starts with technology that seems helpful but will gradually grow to erode privacy. Not just the privacy from the Government, but our privacy from each other. A world without secrets would be a very boring world indeed.
http://developers.slashdot.org/articles/03/06/03/1 715257.shtml?tid=158&tid=99
"Here is my idea. Pay as you go sex. If you last 3 minutes you pay for 3 minutes only."
Pay as you go? Alright Tyson. See if you can last the first round.
One or the other. Not both.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
But does it run Linux?
----
Ground Control to Major Tom...
This is true of all insurance, including malpractice. There's increasing evidence that the "runaway malpractice crisis" in America is actually a simple cyclical effect, as the market fluctuates. But pretty soon we're probably going to institute "tort reform" that will strip patients and consumers of redress in court, while doing nothing to actually rein in costs. But at least we'll stick it to all those blasted trial lawyers... well, except the appropriately housebroken corporate ones. (No one seems to ever notice that there are lawyers on both sides.)
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
My wife and I were discussing a different take on this concept a couple of days ago, and came to agree that this kind of thing is a *bad idea*.
Our conversation was about health care premium reductions for opting out of "maternity" services. But I think the same arguments apply here. Basically, this kind of system defeats the core purpose of insurance; namely, to share risk.
There are times when charging more for a given behavior makes sense (eg quitting smoking) and times when it doesn't (eg driving in safer neighborhoods). Basically, given that people for the most part can't choose where they drive, this amounts to a violation of the risk sharing priciple. It doesn't drive down overall premiums, simply shifts those premiums to an unlucky subset, while getting others a break the didn't earn.
And of course, the system is designed to encourage safer driving, but we already have that in the form of accident reports and moving violations, which bring up your premium dramatically when you commit them.
I don't want to see a system where the rich folks get lower premiums due to driving in suburbs, while urban drivers get nailed. It leads to that insurer ending up with safer drivers overall (as the higher premiums for those in Compton drive them out of the insurance pool). In fact, in most cases such preferential insuring is actually illegal.
You can't accept only low-risk drivers as an insurer, because doing so breaks the risk-sharing concept that underlies the whole system.
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
I know this is heresy for a technology site, but why allow all this privacy-invading electronics in the car if we could do it much more simply with a gas tax? Sure it's not perfect but it doesn't require any extra technology costs and it eliminates a lot of overhead from the current system.
As drivers change their habits and routes, cheap "safer" routes will become congested and accident-prone. Rates will increase on the new routes and old routes will stay expensive.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Are people really prepared to [insert giving up of x privacy or y civil liberties here] to save money [...]?
Sadly, the answer is yes. I think most people would care much more about their money than their privacy.
I'm surprised that in 35 posts no one has mentioned that pay-as-you-drive insurance would tend to decrease driving, and so would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, and urban air pollution.
These would seem to be the major benefits of this
idea by far, in the grand scheme of things.
Also. There's no need to track everywhere the car
goes in Orwellian fashion. All you need is a new
design of tamper-proof odometer that can be read
once a year when you renew your insurance.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
is u can save a whole lot of money by switching to geiko,,
bad news.. the lizard gets to come with...
There is (unsurprisingly) a high correlation between total miles driven and number of accidents. Right now, your insurance premiums don't account for this at all. The BBC article focuses on the GPS effects of pay-as-you-drive (PAYD), such as charging for types of motorway, time of day, etc., but the really big deal is just knowing the total number of miles driven.
So how does this help students, or the poor? Well, those two groups typically meet two criteria: high risk, and low financial resources. For these people, there are real benefits to being able to reduce their premiums which they can do by reducing the miles they drive. Right now, if you're a high risk driver, you're SOL - you pay the high premiums and suck it up. With PAYD, you can at least drive less, and still gain the benefits of having a car without breaking the bank.
(As a side effect, PAYD could help to encourage more sustainable modes of transportation, by making transit/walking/etc. more attractive relative to driving.)
If you're interested in these issues, check out this article: Pay-as-you-drive pricing for insurance affordability by Todd Litman.
One interesting note from the article: the reason poor drivers pay more as "higher risk" drivers is geographic. Insurance companies rank poorer neighbourhoods as "high risk", but not because poor drivers are more risky in their behaviour. No, it's because rich neighbourhoods tend to have more underused (second or third) cars, which are very low risk, lowering the risk of the entire neighbourhood.
And I do agree with the many posts here complaining about the ripoff world of automobile insurance... it's insane how expensive it is, and how cruel those companies are!
A true pay as go or 'those who drive more pay more' concept would be to pay at the pump. The states should add .10 (or whatever) per gallon to go to Liability coverage for all that drive. No more uninsured motorists. No high fees for those that only drive 200 miles per month. It may sound a little socialist but you'd sure see those SUV sales give way to Hybrids.
"And what if they hold a minimum-wage job at McDonald's? You'd probably be waiting 500 years to get your money."
Funny. That's how long McEmployees have to wait too.
I recently had to design this very system as part of a project for my comp sci degree in York. At the end of the project, we had a presentation from IBM (who are making the devices for Norwich Union), where the team who had worked on it told us that by the end they were disgusted by the abuse of privacy that could be achieved using this GPS-driven monitoring system.
Incidentally, they also told us they had to break several rules set as part of the project, such as using only volatile storage and having the device's power decided entirely by whether or not the keys were turned in the ignition. For your information, the data is retrieved using a transmission via GPRS from a system running inside a Java VM under Linux.
There has been a less-technology-reliant and privacy -friendly alternative discussed for years. It is called "pay at the pump" insurance. The basic notion is that a state pools all motorists and seeks an insurer willing to underwrite the entire state at a bulk rate. Then the penny a gallon cost is added as a tax at the pump.
Why is it attractive? Because if you drive, you are insured because you buy gas. Conversely, if you don't drive, you don't pay.
Texas, where I live, has a HUGE problem with uninsured motorists. It is a very significant portion of my premium (I could look it up, but for drama purposes lets say it is 50%... which is close). By bundling the premium with the gas, you instantly eliminate uninsured motorists.
I can imagine all sorts of social benefits as well. Drive a fuel efficient car, you pay less. Drive a huge SUV (like I do), you pay more. I won't feel as bad running over the electric cars, because I've paid my fair share.
Others have identified issues, like electric cars not paying at all. Risky drivers don't pay a proportionally large premium like they should. Motorcyclists pay very little while being extremely noisy^B^B^B^B^B risky. Basically, I don't care about those things because my premium would be cut in half or more.
As far as I can tell, the idea was defeated in the early 90s by the insurance and trial-lawyer lobbies.
How about just switching to Gieco?
They're joking, right?
Picture this:
You get carjacked. And because the carjacker assumes that you have the GPS setup, he kills you and dumps you in the trunk/boot or something. He then knows he has a certain amount of time before someone or other figures out you're missing, and at least 48 hours after that for the "missing person thing." In that amount of time, the car can easily be stripped of the GPS device.
Without the GPS device: carjacker leaves you confused and scared on the side of the road...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
The way I ride my bike, I'm usually at least twice the speed limit on back roads where the corners count.
:(
Ugh. It'd make me have to take up... cruiser motorcycling or something.
...Steve
Young drivers are usually saddled with -HUGE- ;-)
-annual- premiums, even if they don't drive
that much (unlikely, but - hey - with Internet
& other hacking activities eating up our time,
there's less left over for cruisin'...
Excellent idea, who's time has come...
ie, as soon as it becomes sufficiently
hack-proof to work... eg, with independent
checking stations installed, a one-City-only
policy could work (every time the car passes
an automatic toll-RFID station, it could
broadcast its ID & the number of KM's driven,
up to that point, which could be relayed to
the insurance company...)
Since most of the comments so far seem to be negative, here's a sound economic reason why this could be exactly safe drivers need.
This new way of insuring aims to tackle a fundamental flaw in insurance -- that there is an Information Asymmetry between the insurer and the insured. People know more about their driving habits than their insurers, so can tell if a policy is good value for them. People who drive on dangerous roads will flock towards high-value policies, knowing that they are likely to benefit. Safe drivers will choose not to get insured, or will take out less cover, as it is not worth their money. With no-one to subsidise the dangerous drivers, the premiums rise, meaning it is now only profitable for even worse drivers to get insurance, and the whole vicious circle begins again.
The industry has dealt with this by using no-claims bonuses: making everybody pay as if they are a dangerous driver, until they prove otherwise.
Anybody who dislikes the idea of guilty until proven innocent should like this program.
Finally, to those who say that it is a privicy invasion, bear in mind that you still have the old option if you are willing to pay for your privacy by subsidising dangerous drivers.
foo mane padme hum
I'm 17, and in Ireland my insurance for one year is about 4,500... so, any way to get cheaper insurance is welcomed. -jp
I drive very little, however I drive on the most dangerous road in 100 miles of where I live every day. This road is so dangerous and yet if you go any less than 10 over the limit people honk at you and tailgait, that is until a drunk 18wheeler drives over them. So it's a horribly dangerous road with people doing in excess of 100 and weaving in and out it's stick.
You get used to it and I've never had an accident but my inssurance company would probably raise my rates if they knew where I was driving. However it's pretty much the only choice unless I want to drive an hour vs 20 minutes. I'm invincible right?
Really. As if some person sitting at a desk gives a flying fuck where you're driving. The company may wish to compile some statistics about where people in general drive but the individual is just a policy number to them.
Of course, it's not as if you don't have a choice, is it? I doubt that GISC will allow the companies to put up the premiums of non-box people so you can't really complain about price hikes or other devious tactics that they will use to garner your precious trivial data.
il bend over and take it...
...to see how they track your speed and increase your premiums. After all, going 70 might be perfectly safe and legal on the rural interstate, but not in a school zone.
:) put speed rather far down the list (driver inattention leads).
Another part of me thinks it would be nice to see an actual correlation between speed and accidents--since the police and insurance agencies have screamed for years that speed is what causes accidents. Even though most independent reports (which I can't remember to cite, but I'll mention them anyway
If they start seeing statistics that higher speeds do not lead to more accidents...ah, who am I kidding. Speeding tickets make too much money for the police and local governments, and the insurance companies (who buy them radar guns).
--Ribald
As somebody who pays $4000 a year for car insurance it probably would help me. My insurance company told me I can't pay anymore unless I get a DWI or I do illegal street racing.
Really, never thought of that. Whoever has mod points now, please mod up!
Paul B.
Haven't I seen this before?
Who gets the higher rate?
Me commuting to work 70 miles a day, but obeying the speed limit and having a clean driving record.
My grandma drives once a week through a quiet residential neighborhood but swerves erratically, runs stop signs, wrong side of the street, 2 miles to the store and back...
No one is going to win in this situation. We'd probably both get charged more than we do now.
Based on my experience with insurance companies, I don't really expect to see them use this to lower premiums, just to raise them and have excuses to terminate policies.
No kidding. For *years* I waited, with ridiculous premiums and no claims, with the guarantee that my premiums would drop dramatically when I turned 25, because of statistics and risk groups blah blah.
Two weeks after I turned 25, my premiums went up $20. I didn't even bother to ask why, I simply switched to another company, who took $100 of my rates. Then I switched to another, which took another $100 off my rates.
In fact, switching companies is the only thing that's ever taken down my rates. After that switch, my carrier's business got taken over by Progressive, and rates slowly rose for me until they're nearly twice what I was paying before. Keep in mind that I've made a single glass claim in this time, nothing else.
I see another switch in my future.
Of course, the insurance companies don't care. If you pay them a premium, and then leave without making a claim, they win. If it were allowed by law, I'd be strongly tempted to go without. Irresponsible as it might be, I'm very nearly convinced that it's actually immoral to let my money go to premiums which support these kinds of businesses.
Tweet, tweet.
There was some talk about this in California a few years ago, they wanted to bake the car insurance into the price of gas, so that everyone would automatically be covered. This would have solved the problem with uninsured drivers, as well as promote energy efficient cars - drive a gas guzzler, and you pay more for insurance too. Personally, I thought it was a great idea, but of course the insurance industry lobby shot that idea down real fast.
Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?"
No, I think people will just switch to Geico to save money on car insurance.
rm -rf sig
"Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?"
No.
I did not want them using a credit report as an excuse to further gouge me, but hey its more important than a 10 year clean driving record with no accidents or tickets ever. So they use it.
Insurance companies aren't in the business to save you money. They're in the business to make money, as much as they can of it. The end result of this technology isn't going to mean less revenue for the insurance industry no matter what they claim.
My guess is that they'll use these devices to provide justification for raising rates. You'll notice that insurance companies claimed that seat belt and helmet laws would result in reduced rates as well, but they never did - in ANY state that passed these laws. All they did was result in fewer payouts from accidents, and more profit for the companies.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Insurance could be included in the price of gas instead. Much simpler, and no privacy concerns. I saw this on somebody's web site years ago; can't remember where. Only question is, how to reward safe drivers / punish accident-prone ones... All insurance companies do this, so it must be effective... or must it?
Actually if you only use your car every once in a while chances are you'd be more likely to cause an accident due to lack of experience.
I for one welcome our "Sunday drivers" overlords.
fewer
Heard any good sigs lately?
Are people really prepared to let insurance companies track their every move to save money on car insurance?
Yes. The masses will put up with almost anything to save money on recurring bills/purchases. That's exactly why mega-corporations like Wal-Mart are taking over the world.
-Scott
Well obviously, if you want to go with the 'flat rate', it's because you know you're a bad driver and have something to hide. Thus, the flat rate will cost you more.
Do you really think that insurance companies have your best interest in mind? They're after all the money they can get and will make sure that there is no reasonable way to opt out.
I have come to the conclusion that the reason guys have endurance problems is because of their parents. Seriously. How many times did you beat off as fast as you could so that you could get it over with before your mother walked in on you? After years of this, don't you think that leaves a permanent impact on your performance?
why don't we make it a public utility, like water? Well, we all know the answer to that (insurance companies are grotesquely profitable and corrupt). Still, it's painfully obvious if you live in America (not commenting on the rest of the Earth) that you must have a car. Our entire infrastructure is build around fast, personal transportation. If you must have a car, and you must have insurance, it becomes an essential service akin to electricity, water and the telephone. It becomes equally obvious that the government should be regulating fees charged by insurance companies to prevent gouging. In point of fact, Insurance companies should not be profitable (not counting individual employees' salaries of course). They ought to be a public service. Something we all need so we all pay into (excepting a few special cases, as might be the case with other public utilities). Such services are not part of the regular economy and have no business drawing a profit any more than the patent office does.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Remember all the billions software pirates were costing us honest users in higher prices? Seen your Windows OS prices go down lately? No?
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting damn tired of having my life run by corporate special interets. We pay all the bills and we're the ones getting fscked.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The insurance companies WANT to know that information so they can root out and refuse coverage to the high-risk pool of drivers. That would allow them to reduce their risk, reduce their costs (reinsurers), and make a boat load of cash. The problem is that it SCREWS the high-risk group since they have to pay OUTRAGEOUS costs for insurance, and you end up with a hunk of people who are uninsured.
This is essentially what health care is dealing with right now. As costs and liability goes up and technology increases the ability of doctors to identify genetic predispositions and weaknesses, insurance companies are finding it more attractive AND possible to weed out the bad candidates and lower risks and costs.
This is one reason that, if I'm fairly certain somethings wrong with me, my first stop won't be a doctor. My first stop will be an insurance agent so I can get a policy. Then to a doctor where I give a false name and pay with cash to get a check-up. Then, if its something bad, I go to a network doctor once my coverage starts and get it taken care of. Pre-existing condition? I don't know what you mean doctor...
-rt
MCA (mustang club of america) used to have an insurance program sort of like this.
You agree to drive your mustang only X miles per year, and they give you a drastically reduced insurance rate.
They mostly much trust you on how many miles you drive. You do have to show that your mustang is not a daily driver. You do this by supplying documentation that you have another vehicle, insurance, title, etc., which is your daily driver.
I don't see that offer at MCA's website, though. Maybe they stopped doing it?
There's no way I'm going to be driving my supercharged rear-wheel-drive solid axle mustang to work every day. In the snow.
But, in summer--drop that top and feel that boost!
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
What, you actually thought the insurance would be cheaper without a hack? As for the viability of this idea, I say no. Dangerous roads have to do with a lot of factors, my closest brushes with collisions have happend on backroads with hardly anyone on them. Lack of paying attention seems to go with less populated roads.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
This (I belive) was first reported last wendsday on BBC news 24. From what I gather this system is a self-installed black-box type peice of equipment. and because of this, there is one serious and posibly obvious flaws which this package, namely, if you are planning to be up to no good, one can simply remove the system from your car boot (trunk).
Secondly, a conjecture against the big-brother-o-phobes, arguing that information about your travelles could be passed to goverment department or the police and this being violation of cival libities, well insurence companies are already at libirty to pass all information about a claiments details and any information they have to the police if a policy holder makes a claim.
And to be frank about the issue of goverments using technologies to track individules, well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but they are already doing so, and have had the ability to do so for many years. MI5 and MI6 scan all email sent within the UK, and this is not the oppinion of some crack-pot conspiracy-freak, it is statiory that all ISPs in the UK provide the "intelligence servies" with full access to their systems. I'm pretty sure the NSA and CIA do the same within the US, and I'm sure I don't have to mention echelion and your cell-phone calls do I?
Dupe
Of course our beloved Vaterland Security dept should of course require those precious data feeds from the insurance companies, for the purpose of tracking terrorists driving, as they do for the ones flying.
Now only if we could cover the ones left walking, we'd know where terrorists are at all times. I cannot wait for those safe times my brothers.
If you had an accident while the black box was disabled, you certainly could not make a claim on it. You should just ride without insurance if you want to save some cash.
This sort of insurance is not for everyone. I am a bicycle commuter. I don't even own a car. If I can pay a few dollars every so often when I do get in a car it would be much cheaper than paying for a whole month.
I see this as being a possibility for rental cars too, but they already have day-to-day insurance for that.
This is how a market economy SHOULD work. Competition between insurance companies means that they will try to reduce their costs associated with each customer. They already have a good statistical model for which customers cost them how much money; as I understand it, red sportscars cost more to insure than a hatchback.
A system like this gives the company a much more accurate gauge of the risks associated with each customer: they can directly relate driving behaviors with claim pay-outs. A Volvo parked in the garage, and used once a week to do the shopping, should carry much lower premiums than the neighbour's luxury sedan that's in traffic 4 hours a day for commuting.
A flat rate insurance system means that safe drivers, or those who drive rarely, are subsidizing frequent drivers, and incompetent or risky drivers. While in the current system, good driving often gets you premium reduction, and a crash drives your premiums up, watching actual driver behavior lets the company directly correlate the premiums with the statistical risk of an accident.
If you want to drive around at 2AM within a few blocks of the local bars/nightclubs, and risk an accident with a drunk driver, you're free to do so... but the insurance company would rightfully bill you for taking that kind of chance.
And as for privacy, driving takes place in the public sphere: there really isn't any to begin with. But if you don't want your driving monitored, opt-out of the system. But don't expect everyone else to subsidize that decision.
So this system not only distributes the costs of insurance more accurately, it acts as economic incentive to drive safely.
Live simply, that others may simply live. -Gandhi
However, if I recall correctly, I always tried to hold it off just until she opened the door so I could jizz on her face. But maybe that's just me.
If insurance companies are pushing this idea, then you can reasonably expect that they're not going to lose any money on the deal.
It's possible that they could actually make more money and charge customers less if pay-as-you-go insurance results in truly safer roads. The insurance companies would therefore pay out less, and even though they also took in less, they'd still make more money.
But it seems more likely that most people won't actually change their behavior all that much, and pay-as-you-go will instead provide a plethora of excuses for insurance companies to raise their average premiums.
genius i tell you! and all you have to do is drive one million miles every year!
I mean, we've got to do SOMETHING to prevent people from VOLUNTARILY giving up their privacy for things as frivolous as 15 minutes in the spotlight or $20 off their car insurance.
Don't they know that we know what's best for them?
- jonathan.
This is crazy...I just had my car stored, because I don't drive enough to bother keeping up the insurance. And last night, in fact, it occurred to me that Pay-as-you-drive might be easier and more efficient, but it would require some kind of monitoring in the car. I finally decided I wouldn't spring for it, because it's too much like having your parents check the odometer after you take the family minivan out on a date. But for someone who didn't mind the lack of privacy, it would be a great deal.
Progressive was working on this sort of thing 5 years or so back, when I interned with them. Privacy concerns aside- and they are very real and serious concers- it sounds like a great system to me. The numbers worked out to be a lot cheaper for a good number of folks, people who drive less than the average. They were working on the prototype in Smalltalk, I believe. I wasn't on that project, but on another awesome Smalltalk project... but sounds like how things should be. Pay for what you use.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
This, and other things I read about - like the way insurance companies would like to know your genetic makup so they can charge you a higher premium if you have a predisposition to some hereditary condition - suggests to me that insurance companies, whether they realize it or not, are busily undermining a fundamental principle of the whole insurance concept. Namely that a large number of people collectively contribute towards a fund that pays out if any one of their number suffers some loss.
If it's going to come down to such a precise reckoning of the odds for each individual, then surely we will arrive at a situation where the sum of the premiums you pay will exactly match the payout from your policy (less the insurance company's profits of course). The averaging out of risk across the mass of policyholders is negated.
And when it comes to that, WTF is the point of being insured in the first place? You might as well carry the risk yourself.
They have proven time and again that they won't drop prices, but will continue to raise them. Every time they used a widely emergent situation as a reason or excuse to raise prices they have declined to lower them when situations improved. I don't trust that the insurance will be less, in fact, it'll be less for a subset that they'll use to prove a point but it'll be more for the majority and overall it'll get them more revenue and profit.
This is similar to a new oral contraceptive pill that reduces the number of period bleedings a girl has to only 4 a year, which I argued over with a girl friend I know that just started taking it because she was told it was "safe". The company says it's as "safe" as other contraceptive pills but when I read about it in detail, from sources other than them though ones that quoted their research finding, I found out that what they mean by as "safe" as other pills, from what I read as quoted to one of their researchers, is that it is as "safe" as other pills in preventing the risk of pregnancy! Duh! But that's not what other people think of when they consider safety, for example, I would like to know how safe it is in the sense that it won't cause my friend have breast cancer in her early 30s, and for that, the fact remains that there is no real data. To add insult to injury the researcher says that women who worry may want to wait a year or two before they start experimentingn with the pill; oh yeah? what would happen in a year or two? it'll be all kosher then? Of course, the company does not make mention of that, as much as I observed in their advertising, and they consistently say it's "safe", leaving it in this, IMHO, very misleading but profitable conclusion. This is an example of a product that uses very generic ingredients but is administered differently so that it's differentiated enough as a new product in a way to make the companies more profit, as it's charged proprietary fees, that are times more than the good ol' and trusted oral contraceptive pill that's backed by 40 years of safety data and record, and the consumers be damned. I would have no issue with them if only they were clear in their advertising, as ordinary consumers don't fish out research details or investigate persistently about what "safe" means.
This new pay-as-you-drive will probably be sold as "costing less", but it won't say whether it'll be "costing" the insurance company less to insure your car and thereby they'd make more profit charging you the same or more, or whether it'd be "costing less" and then in tiny, almost unreadable fineprint it'd say that costs would "vary" thereby further misleading.
Some
Auto insurance is a mandated purchase by the government, and controlled by a few large companies. Those squealing that the "free market" will prevent abuses either are willfully blind to or for some reason can't see the imbalance of power involved here--in no way could the automobile insurance market be considered a free market in any sense. Because insurance is a government required purchase, and because of the history of the insurance industry robbing the public, the industry is and hopefully will continue to be heavily regulated, which is the only hope of preventing this becoming mandatory except for the very rich who can afford large surcharges.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Car insurance is required in certain states.
Insurance companies offer lower premiums to have devices placed in cars. People bite.
Insurance companies setup system to track people and log data to recoup costs of installing trackers/lowering rates.
FBI/CIA/NSA/TIA get ahold of upto the minute records. They then begin going around with a GPS tracker and taking signals from cars to find cars that don't have the devices installed, and thus, do not have insurance, and thus, can be confiscated or heavily ticketed.
FBI/NSA/CIA/SS/BATF takes pictures of protesters, which they make at protests, and runs them across their drivers lisence database to see who attends protests.
Some states begin marketing manditory car insurance as a super idea. They begin a campaign to put it in every car in every state, or mabye they'll try something federal.
Government/corporations then correlate data between where people go to shop and work to see who might be "dangerous". Then they begin harassing the extreme protesters; not renewing gun or drivers lisences on account of being terrorists, banks revoke them loans, ect. OR mabye they can pull them over, arrest them and throw em' into concentration camps.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Dupe -- In soviet russia, storyduplicates you!
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
pay as you go car insurance will only be economical to very few individuals...maybe someone in a very large city who only drivers their car a few times a month.
No, those people will use an on-demand car service, thus paying less.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Okay, most GPS modules use serial output in one of several formats (some need a TTL converter but thats trivial). So you setup your computer to interpert the data from the real GPS, and feed it to their board with speed shifting, so you drive like the perfect grandma.
Another funny thing to do would be to see what happens if you simulate 120mph speeds and such. When they jack your rates up, moan. Then simulate 180mph. Then 210.
Can you imagine trying to fight an error on the log box? Your rates would be insane.... "the box don't lie" the PFY behind the counter would say.
Oh yea, and in case you didn't know... you can hear a live audio feed from a Popeye's drive thru in Norfolk Virginia by opening http://audio12.hrconnect.com:8000/popeyes.m3u in any popular audio player that supports mp3 & m3u playlists.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air You better watch out There may be dogs about I've looked over Jordan, and I have seen Things are not what they seem What do you get for pretending the danger's not real Meek and obedient you follow the leader Down well trodden corridors, into the valley of steel What a surprise! A look of terminal shock in your eyes Now things are really what they seem No, this is no bad dream The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want He makes me down to lie Through pastures green he leadeth me the silent waters by With bright knifes he releaseth my soul He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places He converteth me to lamb cutlets For lo, he hath great power, and great hunger When cometh the day we lowly ones Though quiet reflection, and great dedication master the art of karate Lo, we shall rise up And then we'll make the buggers eyes water Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream Wave upon wave of demented avangers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream Have you heard the news? The dogs are dead! You better stay home And do as you're told Get out of the road If you want to grow old
I live about 5 blocks from my office and put less than 4,000 mi/yr on my car. I have no problems with my insurer knowing where I drive if it would save me a considerable amount on my insurance. When I think about my car payment, insurance, and what gas I do buy, I'd love to reduce at least the insurance part more... Privacy schmivacy... what have I got to hide?
My mom is in the garment industry and works in downtown LA. Very high rate of car theft. Her company's garage is small and has a guard. So there's 0 theft there. I can only see this hurting her insurance though.
Photos.
Seems many an insurance company use the insured's credit score as a measure of risk. I always thought that was bogus considering I have a nearly perfect driving record yet less than average credit score.
And it's not like they're going to make them mandatory.
They wont make it mandatory, they will just phase out the 'old way' of doing things.
Its been troubling to me to see that the latest trend in introducing controversial laws/ways of doing business etc.. is to introduce only small pieces at a time.
The average joe seems to fall for it everytime but when told the whole story from the begining, joe would not accept it.
How can we fight this?
I know recently I read that Progressive Insurance is offering discounts for those that allow them to install a dongle to the ECU, I think its called, of the car. This way they will refund you based on your driving habits.
.
And as history shows insurance companies have always been trustworthy and are customer service oriented
The last thing I want insurance doing is tracking me, this way they can whip out that multipaged contract we all sign in size 5 font to look for loopholes or amendments to which I am not covered for whatever situation because of extenuating circumstances based on the computer or GPS readings.
No Thanks.
"Of course, the insurance companies don't care. If you pay them a premium, and then leave without making a claim, they win. If it were allowed by law, I'd be strongly tempted to go without. Irresponsible as it might be, I'm very nearly convinced that it's actually immoral to let my money go to premiums which support these kinds of businesses."
Then why don't you become self-insured? If you have the money, or a bond to that effect. You can have yourself legally self-insured.
The article seems to suggest that this will make insurance cheaper
Yeah, right. Just like all the technology that makes cd duplication cheaper, that has pulled the cost of creating cds down to mere pennies apiece? Think the customer is ever going to see this? No way. This will create higher profits for the insurance companies, but consumers won't be effected in their monthly bills.
The other benefit for the insurance companies is that they will be able to put everybody at fault for everything. Were you t-boned by a car that had a red light? Sorry, you were going 36.2 mph in a 35 zone, so both drivers will be considered at fault. Premiums go up even higher, again boosting profit for the insurance companies.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Perhaps in the future they will pay you based on where you drive? Or perhaps speed?
Go 70 Miles in an hour on a road with a 65MPH limit... your rate goes up.
Go drive alongside a mountain... your rate goes up.
Perhaps night driving too? Especially on New Years Eve.
I could see this working for some people, and saving them a load of cash. But I could see some people really do get a bargan with insurance if you think about the cr@p they do.
I think the insurance companies want in on the cell phone scam.
....
"How many miles to think you will drive each month? 400, ok that will be just 39.95 per month."
The bill comes in the mail at the end of the month
_39.95 Monthly charge
367.76 Roaming charges
176.82 Driving after-hours charges
__4.95 back road access fee
__4.95 GPS access fee
__9.95 blinker fluid fee
__4.95 Regulatory fee
_______________________________
609.33 Total
Thank You for letting use shaft you
Stae Farm Insurance
Right now, I'm driving without insurance.
..and no, I don't fuckin feel like walking/riding a bike to work, so don't even bother :)
I have PLPD coverage (which is the minimum you can have in my state), and they want to charge me $100!!! I have a perfect driving record, too.
I only live a few miles from work, so I'm not gonna pay $100 just to drive that distance. It's actually cheaper for me to get pulled over once every 3 months than it would be to pay the insurance.
We also have no-fault here, so if you get into an accident, it is covered.
I'd gladly take a "pay as you drive" policy, but instead of some whacked out GPS, they could just check the odometer instead. That's a bit more realistic and harder to set back (turning back the odometer is illegal anyway).
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
article seems to suggest that this will make insurance cheaper
No plan the insurance industry puts for will ever make insurance cheaper for the consumer. If there was a plan to do so, the insurance company would bury it very deeep, indeed. How could it be otherwise? Actually reducing the cost to the consumer would reduce profits, and deliberately reducing profits - shareholder value - would be criminal.
Would be nice to have danger signs which warn of impending accident hotspots, I'm sure people would slow down more if they saw a sign saying 'Danger of Death - Accident Blackspot' than the currnet 'SLOW'.
Very few daily drivers actually achieve "proficiency". Even fewer drivers who don't drive often do.
This will never work or be implemented.
For one thing you could block the gps signal. Because you can't always get a signal in some areas.
Also the insurance company doesn't know if your on a road or not. I know that in online mapping programs there are road it doesn't think exsist. And if you go offroading with the gps enabled car what would the rate be for that?
Never Smoke A Banana.
When Kroger, Harris Teeter, Bi-Lo, Food Lion, and pretty much every other grocery store jumped on the bandwagon of "savings cards" - we asked, "Are people really going to let grocery stores track their buying habits just to save a little money?"
This is very much the same concept as the insurange monitoring - IMHO. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually we have a "consumer card" with RFID - if not a national ID card - to track our buying habits if not our location at all times as well. But that's just me, and I'm wearing a tin foil hat as we speak. And I'm wardriving in order to hide my home IP address.
The article seems to suggest that this will make insurance cheaper.
Bullshit......
I happen to like the idea of "Pay as you drive" auto insurance but would tie it to a surcharge on auto fuel (gas or diesel). Every drivers license would have an insurance rating encoded on it. Every gasoline pump would be required to read this insurance rating prior to the sale of gasoline. Depending on the drivers rating the surcharge would go up (for bad or new drivers) or be low for safe drivers. This has several benefits; 1) The more you drive, the more you pay. 2) Bad drivers pay more. 3) No more uninsured drivers. 4) The power of insurance companies would decrease.
- Driving is a REVOKABLE PRIVILEGE, not an UNALIENABLE RIGHT;
- to have his actions while driving a motor-car scrutinized by public authorities,
- to be subject to license revocation, thus no longer having the option of driving his own motor-car,
- that the right to travel is perfectly exercised without the possession of a driver's licence.
- Being done on PUBLIC SPACES, drivers should HAVE NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY whatsoever;
- it is perfectly permissible for ANYBODY to track the whereabouts of any given motor-car;
- if PUBLIC SAFETY can be improved dramatically by the use of motor-car tracking and monitoring devices, it is perfectly fair to mandate the installation of such devices.
Thank-you for your attention.therefore one can expect :
therefore :
I have only one "serious" question about this.
The whole "1984/George Orwell/Big Brother" thing is obvious. But the whole idea with insurance is that you DO NOT know when you're going to get in an accident.
With GPS, you can plot someone's position in three dimensions. And their velocities. You won't need a cop to take a report, because you can just look at the GPS logs and see that Car-A pulled 40g's when it hit that other car. Broadside. At a red light intersection while a funeral was travelling through. And you can look at the past 10 minute graphs, and decide if that individual was intoxicated or not. Coupled with whether he just left the local pub, or work.
We would not be having a fucking trial for Scott Peterson right now, using this method.
Very quickly, insurance companies would put themselves out of business. And I mean hardcore out of business. They'd become judicial prosecutors, rather than insurance companies.
So, who makes more money: an insurance company, or a litigation corporation?
So I get this notice from Progressive Insurance that I can hook a sensor up to my OBDII and possibly get cheaper insurance rates. Mind you, I'm the kind of guy who likes to see whether or not his car is actually able to obtain the 151MPH that has been published (I chickened out at 142 MPH) on I-70 in Eastern Utah. Don't worry - there were no other cars for miles. Had I crashed I might have harmed a rock or hundred.
Ah yes, back to the current situation. I re-register in after moving from L.A. to Cleveland, Ohio and need to find a new insurance company. Progressive, based about five miles from my new house, offers me this doo-dad to plug into the OBD-II port. I don't know what it records, but I do know the voltage supplied to each pin when the car is idle / off. A simple printer A/B switch to the 12V does the trick to give a conatsnt "Off" signal to said doo-dad. Said doo-dad connects to a USB base to phone home.
I'm screwed if cumulative odometer mileage is reported through the OBD-II. I did a quick google search, but that did not give me a definitive answer.
So it comes to this - I know that I can spoof an "Off" signal to the doo-dad, but I'm not skilled enough to read exactly what the device is reading / reporting.
Any ideas? I'm pretty sure that eventually many / all insurance companies will require these, so I'm merely planing for the future.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Let the insurance industry figure out how much you drive and how safe your car is by something low-tech: insurance premiums via gas tax. Giant SUV's pay more as do gas sucking sports cars while a prius or VW tdi gets an even larger cash break.
i dont drive often but my car is parked next to one of the worst neighborhoods in chicago.
Alright, I'm not going to go nuts on the privacy issue here, although it isn't really that nice of an idea. My problem is going to be with the insurance companies! Imagine getting an insurance bill on USEAGE, like a cel phone bill:
The sad thing is, I might not be joking...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
The bad news is, this system is wide open to abuse by insurance companies and governments alike.
The good news is, I just saved a ton of money on car insurance by switching to Geico
All your base are belong to us!
Fuck no.
In Minnesota, Progressive Insurance started a program that allows a savings of up to 25%. The monitor measures acceleration, braking, distance, time, and some other factors. If you avoid rush hour, and aren't peeling out at stop signs or traffic lights, and aren't slamming on the brakes, they give you a variable discount. If you don't drive at all, you get the maximum discount. Progressive is test-marketing this program now.
-- No sig for you!
Insurance companies are in for the profit same as anyone else. They have two ways to play the game: 1. Increase revenue -- which means raising rates -- in most cases, they're already squeezing the blood from people -- so not an option. 2. Reduce expenses -- which means coming up with new and innovative ways of not paying out. Enter technology! The use of technology to avoid paying insurance claims is not new. Most Americans driving newer cars already have black boxes that have already been successful in proving driver negligence and nullifying insurance coverage. This new technology just takes it to the next level. Instead of making the data available to the insurance company only after a crash -- they get the opportunity to know everything about your driving habits BEFORE. Does anyone really believe that the insurance companies WOULD NOT use this data to THEIR advantage? Most policies have a clause that completely removes the insurance coverage in the event the driver has broken the law. Proving you've been driving drunk was pretty easy -- but proving you ran a stop sign, or even a cross-walk was next to impossible -- until now. If you can say that you are a 'perfect driver' and have never ever made a driving error of any kind -- I'd like to meet you! (I've never met a god before either, but won't be holding my breath.) All this system will do is catalog your every transgression, and give the insurance company an easy way out of any attempt to get them to pay. "Judge, Joe Smith has violated the law 54 times in the past 2 years -- he has demonstrated a clear pattern of reckless driving -- why should our insurance company pay for this accident?"
They don't just mean my (coverage limit so low premium so high I simply reject it) bodily injury coverage. It includes property damage, collision coverage, and liability coverage.
I've seen the clause enforced as well.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
Want better? Do it yourselves. The US puts up a GPS system and you fucking Europeans have the gall to complain when we do what we want with it. Too bad. It's ours.
That's what you get for leaving us to solve the world's problems.
And I don't think Korben Dallas would approve.
Some years ago an economist showed with very convincing arithmetic that long distance phone companies would make more money if they charged everybody a flat rate and eliminated the overhead of minute-by-minute accounting -- capturing the call data, generating the bills, resolving customer disputes, archiving the information, etc.
When I hear about elaborate technical schemes to monitor people's driving habits to collect road taxes, insurance and the like, I wonder what the payoff is for putting all this effort into making sure the right beans come out of the right piles. What if insurance were priced by car value alone? Surely some people would whine about paying for their irresponsible neighbor's bad habits. But if all the rate-juggling overhead were eliminated, would everybody's rates be higher or lower than what good drivers are paying now? And in another light, if it cost somewhat more than today would it be worth it to retain what's left of our privacy?
The next step up is PowerPay, with a one-way wireless link. "The PowerPay user interface enables operators to enter payment activity and the solution will automatically control customer vehicle usage through the dispatch of appropriate wireless controls."
Finally, we get PassTrax, with GPS and a two-way link. They know where you are, and they can turn the car off.
Long Live Big Brother!
I have to disagree. One accident may be just bad luck, but there are people out there who are accident magnets. While they may not be legally at fault, they repeatedly put themselves in high risk situations where someone else's error can cause an accident. When someone is involved in serious accidents on a regular basis, there is something wrong with the way they drive.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Lunardi (italian minister) has already purposed this as a _LAW_ (not a choice) two months ago... where is my privacy gone??? And also, who's going to pay the GPS to adequate to this law? Guess who?
42.
From the technology correspondent for the totally inept.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
And 2+2=5 ... right?
...
... as long as it's in the form of a contract ... so the question is ...
...
Sorry but it's exactly the kind of attitude of surrendering your privacy for 100 quid that's the first step on a long road to pervasive surveilance.
Great. I really dislike the people of this world who would rather a quick buck than preserve their rights.
I wish those people would realize that using your right-to-contract to surrender your rights to a corporation is no different in the end than surrendering your rights to the government. The only difference is that rather than big brother being a government, it's a corporation
No laws really prevent a corporation from controlling your life
What's your price?
-S
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
Norwich Union is the company providing this. I work for one of their subsidiaries, which is why I'm posting anonymously.
Like many big companies, everything is a Business Decision and is based on how much money can be made.
They're spinning this as "You could save money!".
Bullshit.
Slashdot is spinning this as "Aarrgh! Big Brother!".
Also bullshit.
Norwich Union own 25% of the UK car insurance market, in a country where car insurance is compulsory. They've been losing market share lately, partly because of a bungled call-centre in India but mainly because literally everything they've been doing lately has been to help the bottom line at the expense of the consumer (and usually the staff as well). Their name is becoming steadily less and less respected as they stumble from one highly-publicised screwup to another.
This is about getting more policies, making more money. Pure and simple.
Socially, the smaller the transaction, the higher the margins can be. This is why bubble gum and soda makers are big earners.
Government intervention only makes the above worse.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
James Madison even wrote in the Federalist Papers that an abusing standing army would be opposed, "
So we are the militia they were talking about. I wouldn't exactly consider us "well regulated*" anymore, but that's our own fault. I think it is perfectly fair to consider state militias the only "real" militias that exist today, since they are the ones who have the professional training. If we were ever invaded, there would still be plenty of willing, if less capable, volunteers.
Ultimately, the milita issue doesn't have much to do with the right to keep and bear arms, however.
Firstly, the amendments exist to specifically enumerate rights we already have, as per the tenth amendment, not to revoke rights (which is the judicial branch's job, basically.) If the gun control people aren't won over to the Founder's intent by the inital wording of the amendment, then there is still one amendment to conveniently overlook; the 9th. and nowhere in the entire Constitution or Bill of Rights does it specifically say that people can not own weapons.
Now, penalties for misusing firearms should be harsh because they are dangerous. What people also seem to always forget is that equal rights and privileges = equal responsibilities and accountability.
*(meaning well-trained, not regulated by the federal government; that would go against the concept of a militia which might be needed to oppose an oppresive government.)
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
That would be michael, right?
A state which doesn't require you do have insurance only says you're OK in that state. If you go into another state which does require insurance, you've violated that state's law.
I should think it the same as those states which allow concealed/carried weapons. Saying "It's legal where I come from" doesn't change anythiung if you've crossed into a place where it's illegal.
NH's no mandatory insurance would not give you a right to be in another state which did require it. They can only exempt you from the requirement in that state.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Hook, line and sinker