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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).
Most big trucks have them already, as well. It's damn near impossible to drive for a company nowadays and not have your every move (and several dozen engine "performance" metrics - like MPG) monitored and recorded. I've talked to a few drivers who were canned for not getting a target MPG - and almost all trucks on the road have hard and soft speed limiters set.
After a while, even when you own the truck, you accept it as part of the cost of doing business.
Truck driver, plumber, Linux systems engineer.
i work with truckies all day every day, and i can assure you it's because about 90% of them are morons who NEED constant monitoring. it's just like running a prep school. while it'd be a valid whinge that they do get the shit end of the stick, all i say is, you should have paid more attention in class and avoided having to do shit house jobs like drive trucks because your a dumbass.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Is the situation in the US really like that? I travel most of the year and have become a great fan of hitchhiking. A lot of my lifts in Europe and Central Asia come from truck drivers, and a lot of them are quite well-educated people, often with university degrees, who began driving trucks because of uncertain economic times. It's not like there's much other work to do in certain places, especially the former Soviet Union.
I wouldn't call the job shit house work either. While it is monotonous, the money is a lot better than you'd expect, and the amount of time drivers have to actually work is continually reduced by new legislation.
Our company has a policy of NO overnight stays in hotels unless the job has been scheduled to be completed over more than a day which has only happened once in 4 years.
This means I have to get up at 5am to drive 300 miles from one end of the country to another over motorways usually on the damn M6 then over twisty country roads for 4 to 5 hrs arrive at one of the many generic industrial parks to do a days work and then drive back usually arriving after 10pm all without going over the legal speed limits.
There is no food allowance so its sandwiches or get fleeced at the service station but then the foods is so bad I usually skip eatng.
We are also expected to work usual office hours during the days before and after customer visits no exceptions. Despite this I am often so exhausted sometimes I cannot even make it to work on time.
After making an insurance claim due to damage caused by an unknown driver find that I have to pay an enormous excess, which the company refuse to pay, this is leaving me frustrated and angry.
Why? It saves the company money, they can charge customers less and be more competative which leads to a bigger a profit.
Really what they are doing is shifting the cost of doing business on to their employees but they lose out on none financial assets like loyalty, customer satisfaction and the rest.
I really enjoy my work and would rather stay than more on else where but polices like these seem mean and dangerous.
The insurance company claims that they would never use any information obtained to consider changes in insurance rates, but that really sounds unbelievable.
Consider the question at a basic level. Is your insurance company altruistic, or are they profit seeking? For many corporations the answer is the latter. In fact it may be their fiduciary duty, unless their mission statement says they will be altruistic.
Assuming the corporation is profit seeking, you can assume that your relationship is adversarial. They may consider good treatment of the customer to be a profitable thing, but the principal motivation is still profit.
Can you tell if they treat their customers well? What evidence do you have? If you have no evidence of how they treat their customers, it may indicate that such information is not generally available. If that is the case, it is safe to assume that the company is not overly concerned with customer satisfaction.
That leaves you with legal obligation. What legal binding have they entered into? Did they put the commitment not to use the information to adjust rates in writing? Are they advertising that commitment broadly?
Assuming one of those is true, also consider whether you can prove that they used the information to adjust your rate. If they adjust the rate, and you suspect it was a result of the camera, how will you demonstrate that in a court of law?
Some corporations are altruistic (a typical example being a Mom & Pop in a small community that relies upon good neighbor status). Many other corporations are amoral. Some believe that amorality is, in fact, the right objective of all corporations. If that is the case with your insurance company, you are in an adversarial relationship and should make your decision as such.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Privacy, like freedom, is a right you should not give up so easily. At present there is really a war against privacy rather than terrorists. It's not fought with bullets, but by bit-by-bit corruption of principles. Just say no.
The only acceptable way this could work is if the device records in such a way they can detect alterations, and they can look at a span of time (say 15 mins) before and after an incident that generated an insurance claim - the rest of their life is of no interest. And that view only after you, as parent, can review before giving permission (apart from your human right to privacy you are also entitled to refrain from self incrimination - it appears you have to give up that right too).
Otherwise your child could (worst case) actually become part of a national covert surveillance system. It would be better if people coming up with such ideas thought about maybe giving some extra training, or limit the power of the car kids may have for the first year - something that doesn't involve even MORE spying on people but brings some knowledge.
In the UK they had a series where frequent joyriders had to go through a programme. Nothing worked, until they were ordered to help at an accident scene - having to help to cut kids their own age out of the wreckage.
Insert
Sure do that. Let's see how your "extra 15%" turn out when your rates go up because of every little thing. Drove too fast around a corner? 1% increase per incident. Drove too close to another vehicle? 2% increase per incident. Almost had a crash but still averted it? 25% increase.
Oh sorry I forget, they said they would never ever do that. Yes insurance companies are trustworthy.
I'm with you (and the OP of this thread). I'd love to have a camera in the car that records what's happening in front of me so that when some jackass hits me. Someone backed into my car while it was parked a couple weeks ago and took off. $2000 worth of damage (including some used parts rather than new) and $250 out of my pocket for the deductible. You'd better believe I wish I had video of that incident, because not only would they be paying, they'd be getting a ticket for leaving the scene of an accident. In addition, maybe I could find out why they couldn't see a red car parked in a lot in broad daylight.
For a side project, I've sometimes considered creating an "aggressivedrivers.com" website or something that just shows video of some of the stupid shit I see people doing out on the road. But what would be the point? It's not like anything short of dying will stop those drivers.
Insurance is a monopoly with a thin veneer of differentiation. Insurance is a heavily regulated industry: regulation = laws. These laws are quite encompassing of almost all areas of insurance; the insurance companies are a virtual monopoly. Once one insurance company implements a new function, then lobbyists go to work to educate lawmakers how this should apply to all insurance companies.More regulation is passed; and the tentacles of the monopoly grip tighter.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
"If you can't drive a tractor, and fit, maintain and operate all the implements for it by the time you're 11, then it's special school time..."
Farming often instills a higher degree of competence in operating mechanical systems.
In training US Air Force technicians I found the "farm boys" (and girls!) were much quicker to adapt to tasks from towing aircraft/backing them into hardened shelters to troubleshooting and repair.
Modern farms are highly technical, and in the US some of the largest tractors ever built are designed and fabricated by their owners.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
What happens when the insurance companies raise the normal rates to 10x what they are now, and offer a "discounted" rate only to those that have this camera installed? That would effectively force it on everyone without the help of any new laws.
You changed your proposition. Specify what you mean by "never position yourself in the blind spots of large vehicles". I'm not clear on how anybody could avoid that. I don't ride up the left hand side of them but I could be behind one and not be visible in their mirror thusly I would be in a blind spot.I over take them on the right unless they are signalling to turn right.
Pavements and red lights I don't do unless you include using drop kerbs which let me get into my driveway as riding on the pavement. Why would I ride on the pavement? The road usually has a better surface. Why would I ride though a red light? I'd come off worse in a collision.
Have you checked the kill rates for cyclists and cars? Do you still stand by "Cyclists are all - without exception - the most dangerous road users."? Or does it look like a silly comment? You are really saying that 43 year old me on a Brompton riding to work is more dangerous than a beered up 17 year old with no insurance driving an Astra with more power going to the woofer than an African village uses in a year?
Will it have GPS or can you circumvent the system by attatching a photo of your garage to it?
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
The crummier the original source (dash cam, web cam, etc) the easier it is to blend in CG elements perfectly.
The higher quality the source (35mm film, RED 4k Camera, IMAX) the harder it is.
And, just FYI, Hollywood is easily capable of creating photo-realistic CGI- but most movie companies aren't interested in paying or scheduling for it. And that's not even considering the fact that all CGI has to be approved by the director- who many times DOES NOT know what looks right in the scene and says it looks too blue or too orange. The end result is that most VFX shots are "good enough" for the money and time allotted.
Lastly, there are many talented individuals out there who given enough time can do photoreal effects.
Here's just one example:
http://vimeo.com/5407991?hd=1
www.GrenadeHop.com
Then those who don't want one, get it forced on them just record a safe drive to work, then installs a lcd screen playing that back in front of the camera so they get a friendly view. Or figure out a way to just play it directly into the camera.
So are you agreeing or disagreeing with him?
Since everything you posted seems to indicate that, yes, children from farming areas do do all that with tractors by the time they are 11.
Why would there be a "campaign to keep children younger than 12 away from tractors" is that wasn't the case?
Where I live lots of movie companies use our schools for movies. The students like to hide little national flags EVERYWHERE in the school when they know a shoot is coming. The students then all rent the movie and try to find all the flags that post-production misses. Believe me, they miss A LOT of them. They have been hidden inside clocks, window corners, door edges, and all sort of places.
Well, I was in a situation that was similar, as it involved video footage, but did not involve vehicles.
In the middle of one night, someone shot out the front windows of his store. Lucky, the people who usually worked late and would have been in the line of fire, happened to go home early that day.
The police looked at their harddrive based surveillance system, but due to the quality of the cameras, they were not able to see any identifying marks and simply said "thank you", not "can we have this for evidence."
They did pull the bullets that they could easily reach. That is, the ones that lodged in shortly after entry, rather than passing through the thin walls and eventually hitting somewhere in the back of the warehouse.
I sat down with the owner, captured all the related video, and send it to my home machine. From there, I poured through all the camera views and compiled it into a single run video, cutting from camera to camera to show his path around the building, and the shots that took out the window.
Back at the store, we had the staff watch the video I made, and asked them if anyone knew the vehicle. The color and type were obvious, but the markings were blurry and the license plate was a whopping 4px wide at best. There were some other distinguishing features. Someone said "Hey, that looks like..." who was a customer that was a bit rude, and they had helped him carry stuff out to his vehicle a few weeks before.
From the customer records, they found a name, home address, etc, etc. That was provided to the police, who said "Well, that's not much to go on, sorry we can't do anything."
We then drove out to the guys house. His vehicle was parked on the street, and I clearly video taped all the distinguishing features of the vehicle, along with a good view of the license plates.
I then edited the new footage, and appended it to the end of the first set of footage. I burned several copies of the DVD, signing each one. I also typed up a statement of what I had done, my sources, and that I was willing to testify to what I had done to make the footage. I honestly didn't even know who the shooter was, I just took the evidence, and make it into something that was easy to view.
It took several phone calls to get the case escalated to a more senior officer. He was presented with the DVD, and watched it with the owner of the store. His response was "wow, you did our work for us."
They secured a search warrant based on my DVD. When they arrived at the guys house, he was honestly surprised. They mentioned a little bit of what they knew, such as "we have video surveillance and positive identification of your vehicle being involved in this incident." He admitted to everything and two other shootings that night. The gun was still under the seat of the vehicle (very illegal in that state).
I've never been called to be a witness in the case, so I'm guessing that he plead guilty and took the sentence.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I like that idea. you are correct, the idea of drives ed as "practice" time went out the window long ago. Most places had drivers ed as an actual class when I was that age and since schools have dropped it. This forces kids to take part-time classes where they might drive with instruction 4-5 times tops then get handed a "learners permit" to drive with their parents. Doughnuts in an empty lot is now "wreckless driving" in most places so practicing anything risky is verboten. Hence kids (and many adults) have no concept of driving under risky conditions except "don't do that" which lasts until they're late to work on a snowy Monday morning in January.
I like the idea of extra classes where you get to practice risky behavior and not just parallel parking. Perhaps a better plan would be to have kids take more of these AFTER they get their license... Doing doughnuts in a safe place is a great way to learn how a car behaves (and it's fun too!) the number of places you can practice driving badly for fun is next to zero in most places.
Could you please post some of the movie titles ? Sounds like fun.
What a giant load of shit.
http://www.massbike.org/info/statistics.htm
* When the motorist and bicyclist were on initial parallel paths, either in the same direction or opposing directions, the three most frequent categories of crashes were:
o Motorist turning or merging into the path of a bicyclist (12.1 percent of all crashes). Almost half (48.8 percent) of these crashes involved a motorist making a left turn in front of a bicyclist approaching from the opposite direction.
o Motorist overtaking a bicyclist (8.6 percent of all crashes). Of these crashes, 23 percent appeared to involve a motorist who misjudged the space required to safely pass the bicyclist.
o Bicyclist turning or merging into the path of a motorist (7.3 percent of all crashes). Within this category, 60 percent involved a bicyclist making a left turn in front of a motorist traveling in the same direction.
* When the motorist and bicyclist were on initial crossing paths, the three most frequent categories of crashes were:
o Motorist failed to yield right-of-way at a junction (21.7 percent of all crashes). Of these crashes, more than a third (37.3 percent) involved a motorist violating the sign or signal and drove into the crosswalk or intersection and struck the bicyclist.
o Bicyclist failed to yield right-of-way at an intersection (16.8 percent of all crashes). Within this category, 38 percent involved a bicyclist who had stopped for a sign or flashing signal and then drove into the intersection and was struck by the motor vehicle.
o Bicyclist failed to yield right-of-way at a midblock location (11.7 percent of all crashes). Almost half of these crashes (43.4 percent) involved a bicyclist riding out into the roadway from a residential driveway.