Slashdot Mirror
Trust an Insurance Company's "Drive-Cam?"
ramen99 writes "Our new car insurance company offered us discounts for our teenage driver if we agree to install a 'drive-cam' that records driving habits and wirelessly transmits video footage to a 'neutral driving coach' for evaluation and comment. While this might be great to monitor a new teen driver, it will also monitor other adult drivers. The insurance company claims that they would never use any information obtained to consider changes in insurance rates, but that really sounds unbelievable. Would you give up your privacy to save some dough? Installation is free, and the camera mounts just under the rear-view mirror. Something seems fishy about this..." Especially when, according to a British insurance firm, computer engineers are most likely to crash (sent in by antdude).
Insurance policies have a way of reflecting your driving habits without you realizing it. The thinking goes, for what reasons would you not want a camera: A) Privacy B) You are a bad driver. At the moment, I'm not sure what privacy concerns you might have unless you like to shag a lot on the hood of your car. I would welcome comments on the potential privacy issues myself.
The idea is exactly the same with regard to premiums/deductibles. If you know you are a safe driver, you opt to pay a lower yearly rate because the chance of you crashing is low, so you can afford to pay more when a crash does happen. If you crash often, you opt to pay higher yearly so that when those frequent car crashes happen, you end up paying less. The camera strategy is based on the same principle.
A safe driver has nothing to fear, takes the camera, and pays less. There are other companies that even deploy accelerometers to determine if you practice safe driving - easy acceleration, not too much hard braking, etc, and reward good driving. As a young driver I would love any way to reduce insurance because I'm paying for all the other people screwing up a lot in my age bracket.
I would. I don't care if anyone knows where I go. If it saves me an extra 15%, I'm totally willing to go for it. Seriously, what do I have to lose? People knowing that' I've driven to work? There are some things I don't want people to know about me, but I *really* don't care if they know where I've been. Anyone can find that out just by following me if they really care, and it's not all that interesting, honestly.
Of course, this is assuming that it actually saves me money. If people start finding that it is costing them more somehow, I wouldn't do it.
Qxe4
Is the situation like that? You mean, you think truckers elsewhere in the world are respected and educated? Are janitors in Europe also well educated people from universities? Hitchhiking is also considered low in the U.S. just like truck driving.
Slashdotters are not representative of the general population.
True, the summary asks would you give up your privacy, for the general population the answer is yes, but here on Slashdot it's a no unless it's a Democrat trying to take it away.
So are you seriously saying that you never cycle on the pavement, never cycle through red lights and never position yourself in the blind spots of large vehicles? Because if that's what you're saying, I don't believe you.