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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).
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.