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California's Revised Pay-As-You-Drive Insurance Draws Continued Objections
The EFF has restated many of their original privacy objections about California's latest revision to the Pay-As-You-Drive auto insurance proposal. Admitting that the amended bill is an improvement, privacy advocates are still uneasy about the surveillance implications of this program. "The proposal centers on a simple idea: infrequent drivers are less of an insurance risk. By pricing policies according to the mileage driven, insurance companies can offer discounts to lower-risk infrequent drivers, and put an appropriate cost penalty on heavy drivers. The state estimates that 30% adoption of PAYD insurance nationwide would reduce miles driven by at least 10% among subscribers, and save 55 million tons of CO2 over the next ten years. The benefits of such a system could be quite dramatic, as California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner is sure to emphasize. Such insurance plans first became available in 2004, and are now available as a limited option in 30 US states from insurance companies like Progressive and Liberty Mutual."
Why would anyone think that paying by the mile would reduce the amount I'm driving?
I don't go on long jaunts around the town just for the hell of it, I go because I need to get somewhere, or pick something up.
So pretty much what this would do is either be a savings for me--because it'd be less than my buffet style policy--or it'd be more expensive for me. I'm guessing that the majority of people, myself included, would fall into the latter category.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
I'd always thought it would be a neat idea to roll auto insurance in at the gas pump. No more uninsured drivers, plus it would be an incentive to reduce driving. obviously LOTS of holes in the plan, but it would eliminate the big brother aspect of this proposal.
I dunno about others, but all of a sudden, I'd have an incentive to find the shortest router from point A to point B, even if that means city-streets instead of expressway. This means I'll be sitting in heavy traffic, clogging up the streets, taking longer to reach my destination, and probably causing more accidents and safety issues.
I know it is common practice on Slashdot to speculate beased on no more information than your initial gut reaction, but this sort of thing is actually the core business of insurance companies. They have people who are quite skilled statisticians, call actuaries, who fiddle over mountains of data to decide how much to charge who in order to maximize profit while still being able to offer comeptitive premiums.
Because you know what a bell curve is doesn't put you in league with these people and your elementary passive aggressive questions do nothing to further anyone's understanding of anything. Not even your own.
Of course a driver who drives more is higher risk. Suppose that over my lifetime I drive one million miles. And my friend, who likes hugging trees, saving whales and composting his lunch leftovers in his pocket, only drives a lifetime total of 100k miles.
Why would his first 100k miles be any less risky than my first 100k miles? The risk of my first 100k miles will not be lessened by the fact that I intend to drive more in the future.
Therefore, unless I have zero risk of an accicident in my final 900k miles, my lifetime risks are higher than his, all other things being equal.
Most accidents happen within, I think it was five or ten miles of a person's home.
Most driving happens within five or ten miles of a person's home.