Uber's Smartphone-Based Gyrometer Monitoring Seems To Be the Future of Driving (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Uber has announced that it has been conducting trials in Houston, Texas, since late 2015 which use data from the gyrometer in drivers' smartphones, combined with accelerometer and GPS data, to perform forensic analysis on Uber journeys where the customer flagged up errant driving behavior such as speeding or tailgating. Uber's post also indicates that talking on a phone whilst driving may be included as a factor in safety-oriented trials. The auto-insurers' move from dedicated telematics technology to smartphone-based data provision was spearheaded by British insurer Aviva in 2012, with massive U.S. insurer Progressive now actively pursuing driver monitoring. However the premium reductions are diminishing as the practice heads from experimental, to default, to obligatory — or so many believe.

Comments

Tracking drivers doesn't seem progressive

[rmdingler]

Do insurers really believe people drive the same way when they know the monitoring device is plugged in?

I've watched a few episodes of Cops, and the roadside interviews on camera are astonishingly more polite than some I've experienced.

Re:Tracking drivers doesn't seem progressive

[geekmux]

Do insurers really believe people drive the same way when they know the monitoring device is plugged in?

Of course people drive differently when being monitored 100% of the time. That's kind of the point here, behavior modification to make driving safer.

I've watched a few episodes of Cops, and the roadside interviews on camera are astonishingly more polite than some I've experienced.

Polite or not, every time I see a "roadside" interview I want to drive a sign into the ground that reads "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE NARCISSISTS".

Pretty much sums up the benefit of that activity.

Re:Tracking drivers doesn't seem progressive

[Hylandr]

No this doesn't work as intended.

Progressive penalizes you for what's called a 'Hard stop' which is 7 Miles per hour of deceleration per second. Living in Austin Texas at the time taught me a few things to avoid the penalty.

- Run most if not all stop signs in parking lots,
- Not give any shits about yellow lights
- Run some red lights if the yellow was too short.
- Switch lanes rapidly to avoid cars slowing down for *anything*
- Increased my anger at other drivers for forcing me to hard stop, ( eg: playing it safe and avoiding a head on as someone gets into the wrong lane )

I had to effectively dive my vehicle like a golf cart to avoid the hits to my discount which translated into poorer driving habits that have persisted long after we switched insurance companies.

I am not alone in this either. You can spot a progressive driver a mile away.

Also a good write-up by a blogger here:

https://blog.joemanna.com/prog...

Re:Tracking drivers doesn't seem progressive

[newcastlejon]

The insurance company pays out less money. They pass on part of the savings.

Speaking as someone who has just had to shop around for their car insurance... no they don't. The one doesn't automatically follow from the other.

Forces 2 phone workaround

[Serialkoala]

So, then Uber drivers and anyone else being monitored for insurance etc, will resort to carrying 2 phones. One tied to their car, one for calling/texting so they can do both simultaneously and not get dinged.

Re:Forces 2 phone workaround

[swb]

I don't think I've been in an Uber where I've seen the driver with less than two phones.

I'd always assumed one was personal and one was their Uber phone, but maybe for some one is Uber and one is Lyft so they can pick and choose based on where they are.

Obligatory my ass ...

[gstoddart]

However the premium reductions are diminishing as the practice heads from experimental, to default, to obligatory -- or so many believe

I don't have a smart phone, and I don't want one.

Unless they plan on making ownership of a smart phone as a mandatory condition for providing insurance, which I question the legality of, they simply can't make this obligatory.

Consenting to being tracked at all times for the benefit of an insurance company? Yeah, go fuck yourselves.

Re:Gyro data is misleading

[N1AK]

What you're talking about isn't an issue. You don't analyse driving based on samples small enough that one incident of hard breaking is going to flag up as an issue. We analyse our fleets performance and the smallest interval we'll typically do any analysis for is ~50 hours driving. A driver would have to show a consistent bias towards excessive breaking over weeks before we'd investigate further. In our case we'd then look up the incidents on the dashcam before taking any action, but with thresholds set right the odds of a completely innocent driver being pulled up will be negligible.

Re:Gyro data is misleading

[arth1]

Also, I have not seen any links between acceleration and accidents.
Cars accelerating up to speed isn't when accidents typically happen. If anything, those who merge onto a road without having stepped on it are far more likely to cause an accident. Even if they're not always involved.
Avoiding using more than the first tenth of the gas pedal isn't defensive driving, it's creating dangers for everyone else who already are driving at legal speeds.

Re:employees?

[jratcliffe]

Why wouldn't a company want to be able to assess the quality of its contractors, and decide if a complaint was valid or not? If you work for an outsourced call center company, and the company gets a call saying "I just spoke to CSR Fermion, and he was unhelpful and swore at me," if I'm the company, I'd want to know if the complaint was legit, rather than just having a policy of "drop anyone who gets a complaint."

The customer is not always right (or sane).