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Insurers Are Rewarding Tesla Owners For Using Autopilot (reuters.com)
Britain's largest auto insurance company Direct Line is testing out an idea to let Tesla owners receive a 5% discount for switching on the car's autopilot system, seeking to encourage use of a system it hopes will cut down on accidents. Reuters reports: The move - confirmed by company representatives in response to Reuters' questions - is Tesla's only tie-up in the UK and comes at a time when the company is trying to convince insurers that its internet-connected vehicles are statistically safer. Direct Line said it was too early to say whether the use of the autopilot system produced a safety record that justified lower premiums. It said it was charging less to encourage use of the system and aid research.
"Crash rates across all Tesla models have fallen by 40 percent since the introduction of the autopilot system ... However, when owners seek to insure their Tesla vehicles, this is not reflected in the pricing of premiums," Daniel Pearce, Financial Analyst at GlobalData, said. Direct Line, which is enjoying soaring motor insurance prices in Britain, said it sets premiums for Tesla drivers based on the risk they present, including who is driving, their age, driving experience and claim history.
"Crash rates across all Tesla models have fallen by 40 percent since the introduction of the autopilot system ... However, when owners seek to insure their Tesla vehicles, this is not reflected in the pricing of premiums," Daniel Pearce, Financial Analyst at GlobalData, said. Direct Line, which is enjoying soaring motor insurance prices in Britain, said it sets premiums for Tesla drivers based on the risk they present, including who is driving, their age, driving experience and claim history.
Our rates have decreased by 40%! Lets give them a discount of 5% because we are so generous!
Pretty sure accident rates in that case are pretty dramatically lower too, other things equal.
... it's switch on your autopilot for a 5% discount.
Tomorrow, it will be manual controls disabled unless you pay the 500% self-drive (i.e.: think "self-serve", you get to drive it your self!) premium.
Yeah look at how all those human drivers crashed into the concrete where the Tesla didn’t.
Tesla users' umbrella insurance policy premiums just went up 1000%.
And as I keep saying, would it have happened to THAT human? If not, then we are all fools to trust the technology.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
And as I keep saying, would it have happened to THAT human? If not, then we are all fools to trust the technology.
That makes as much sense as saying that you should buy lottery tickets because you might win.
If your driving skills are 40% better than average, you might come out ahead by driving yourself. Everyone else has better odds with Autopilot, and the odds will get better as the technology improves.
Most humans aren't very good at assessing risk, since they tend to rely on emotion and anecdote.
Insurance companies, OTOH, live or die by the accuracy of their risk assessment, and as such they do a proper statistical analysis and go by the actuarial tables -- or they go out of business.
Therefore I'm inclined to weigh the insurance companies' ideas about what improves safety more heavily than shouts of "OMG look what happened that one time though" on Slashdot.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Even if you're so convinced that your situational awareness and reaction times are better than a computer's (they're not) you should at least root for everybody else to be using autopilot because it's certainly better than the average driver.
I'll feel a damn sight safer driving when all the other cars aren't being piloted by distracted meat sacks.
Fine, so screw the people who actually are better than Autopilot?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Can't say I have ever in my life been in a vehicle with a person I didn't feel safe with. Maybe 1 in 10,000 you see doing something stupid and you're ready to call everyone a bad driver.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You're completely missing the point. I'm not denying that people in general get into less accidents. The insurance company doesn't care whether Autopilot causes an accident for someone or not, they're happy to charge either way. I'm just saying the person who had Autopilot get them into an accident due to faulty programming and lack of testing, they don't deserve to have their premiums go up.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Ok then there is no discussion, computers are perfect because of their awareness and reaction times and therefore will never get in an accident.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Those with such skills likely know it
Nope. 80% of drivers rate themselves "above average".
How does Autopilot compare with "Forward collision warning, auto-pedestrian detection with auto braking, lane-departure warning and driver lane assist with adaptive cruise control"? I guess it has this long name because "Autopilot" (for an automobile) is already trademarked?
This whole shebang is standard on the 2018 Camry and an option on the Ford Fusion. I believe the sensors are millimeter-wave radar and cameras.
Who ever said anything about them never getting in an accident. It's not a question of perfect, it's a question of better, and they're demonstrably better.
I know multiple humans that have done the same thing. Perfect isn't the immediate goal. "Beating a human" is a low bar, and autopilot beats it.
Learn to love Alaska
Fine, so screw the people who actually are better than Autopilot?
It isn't clear that anyone is better. Is the "best" driver 40% less likely to be in an accident as an average driver? I don't know, but perhaps not. Many accidents are unavoidable. If someone pulls out in front of you, and there is no place to swerve except into oncoming traffic, then the only thing that matters is how fast you can brake. Even the best humans take about 1500ms to see the problem, realize what is happening, shift their foot to the brake, and start depressing. At 60 mph, a car can go about 130 feet in 1.5 seconds. Autopilot takes about 1ms to start braking.
Again the point is that they are causing accidents for some. Some who will pay more for insurance, not because they made a mistake while driving but because they had bad luck. No one is denying they are better than average in the right circumstances.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Yep, if Tesla says they are selling a driving service, let's let that driver take responsibility for its actions. It's the only way to ensure these companies are as safe as possible.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Is there decapitation waver that I have to sign to get this discount?
And as I keep saying, would it have happened to THAT human? If not, then we are all fools to trust the technology.
Would you toss a coin or play russian roulette for your life? The outcome is not given, but statistics matter. You can't take the guy who just blew his brains out and say "should have taken the coin toss" except as snark. Same way with a self-driving car, you pick the least risk but sometimes luck is against you. Unless you think it's because THAT human is actually better than average, but that's just moving the goal posts a little to say "better than sober, drug clean rested female age 40 with 20+ years experience" rather than "better than the average driver".
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
That's a different proposition. The question is how do the people actually that good rate themselves.
That's a different proposition. The question is how do the people actually that good rate themselves.
If you "know" your skills are better than average and 80% of drivers think they are better than average, how can you be sure that you are not one of those people who think you are better than average, but are in fact not better than average?
I suppose that, depending on the distribution and how one defines "average" in this context, one could have 80% of the population being slightly better than average, with the 20% who are below average being way below average (80 people scoring 51, and 20 people scoring 46 gives an average of 50, so 80% are above average).
If that occasional fuckup happens on a motorway in fog and black ice conditions, it's going to be a category 5 splatterfest.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
car autopilot does not text and drive, what's for shure...
Probably would be a thing if it was easy to track if people are not using celphones.
delirium ?
Actually they do. You'll find that most all autopilots have cell connections that they send telemetry out on.
The difference is a true multitasking OS and multiple cores so they can truly multitask with the texting niced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The public roads are NOT race tracks, nor places for pissing contests. They are mere means for solving transportation problems. You need to get fom A to B, without killing someone else or getting yourself killed. You need to do that without causing any dammage and unnecessary expenses to yourself or someone else. So the only meaningful definition for "better driver" should be the one who states something like "the person who was not involved in a car accident" or something like that. Statistics and not gut filling should be your judge.
Reaction times? No. Situational awareness? Hell yes.
Good drivers expect idiocy from others and don't let them get to a point where half a second matters in vehicle operation
So, if you're going 50 MPH on a highway, and some car is coming from a side street, you're going to slow down to 15 MPH, just in case they don't yield ?
This is the question nobody has answered.
Of course it has been answered. The whole article is about the answer: the insurance company will pay for it.
So therefore, what? The bloody mess (oh excuse me, 'failure modes') that gets us there is justified? They can't/won't even fully automate trains yet. Lets start with that one first.
I find the whole "X or Y" discussion a little funny.
If you have a system X that can prevent some cases of problems, and a system Y that can prevent some other cases of problems, then the logical solution would be to combine those systems, so that when of of the systems doesn't detect an oncoming accident the other does.
That that is so often overlooked, I suspect, is because people are not really interested in preventing problems, but more on putting the blame on one of the systems. Which gets a pretty hard to do, when two systems co-pilot the car.
It doesn't matter if a computer has perfect reaction times if it can't recognise deadly scenarios in any time frame. Computers as no-where near as good at recognising hazards as humans.
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You know you are advocating not using anything until a perfect safety record can be achieved, right? In that spirit, here is an incomplete list of things you should stop using immediately in order to not appear to be a hypocrite:
Any car, with autonomous driving capability or not
Any motorized transport whatsoever
Any aircraft
Any boat
Any animal-powered transport, including but not limited to horses, oxen, cattle, elephants, dogs, or humans
Elevators, escalators / stair lifts
Bicycles / tricycles
Electricity
Candles
Natural gas
Propane
Gasoline
Diesel
Kerosene
Whale oil
Fire of any kind
Thank you. When one of these technologies achieves a perfect safety record, we'll let you know and remove it from the list.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Computers as no-where near as good at recognising hazards as humans.
Computers are already better than a human driver looking at something else.
Just occurred to me, how can I tell that this was the autopilot's doing? I'm not in the car so I find it hard to tell.
Ezekiel 23:20
I'm just saying the person who had Autopilot get them into an accident due to faulty programming and lack of testing, they don't deserve to have their premiums go up
So you would be okay with paying higher premiums if it got into an accident despite sound programming and thorough testing ?
Those with such skills likely know it
Nope. 80% of drivers rate themselves "above average".
"Received 27 April 1984, Revised 22 May 1985"
I can think of a billion reasons why your reference study is worthless.
"Do you use your smartphone while driving?" is the only question necessary to prove how bad drivers are today. Self-assessments are now irrelevant.
That may be so but if a computer can't tell the difference between a road and a river then it really doesn't matter that it's not distracted whilst being cognitively deficient.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
In other words: what matters is the overall statistics. And apparently, the insurance company believes that computers can make an improvement.
Driving is boring, autopilot is safe, here's Tom with the weather.
I would love to have the old way of calculating premiums back when you started high and then when you showed to be responsible and didn't have accidents it went way down. If you did have accidents the premium went up again.
This way it's more of a loan where you have to pay back and less trying to predict the future with massive data collection and strange, prejudiced looking, algorithms.
I see stupid things all the time and I make mistakes as well even if I consider myself a way above average driver. A lot of mistakes are simply increasing risk without anything necessarily going wrong. Often it's 'IF another car had done this you'd have been in trouble'.
If that were the case, it wouldn't get into accidents.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You can also say 50% of the drivers ARE about average and they constantly have to hear this argument as a form of denial.
Of course if you use a statistic where 60% of the drivers are average and only 20% above average, then 80% of the drivers have really stupid ideas.
That's stupid, if people had crystal balls this wouldn't even be a discussion. You would know every flaw lurking in Autopilot and they would be fixed.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So? The point is whether you absolutely know whether you are safer than Autopilot or not. If you don't know, then you shouldn't be using it until you do know.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Sometimes it does mean you slow down to a speed where the damage is less. Often it means that before that moment you do the opposite: show your commitment and maintain your speed as long as possible so the other driver won't get the idea he can cut in just in time. There's a lot going on if you're an active driver . You're checking if the other one is aware, if he is slowing down so the moment you see his speed is not matching the situation, you can react.
If that were the case, it wouldn't get into accidents.
So you would only accept a computer driving if it was absolutely perfect. But a human driver getting into accidents after just a few dozen hours of practice is acceptable.
I am amazed that there are so many people with so much free time that they want to sit and rotate a wheel side to side for an hour a day. Are they F-ing crazy? Let's be clear, driving is a waste of time, you could be spending that time doing so many other things like being productive, drafting a presentation, video conferencing to your family, watching TV, playing video games, or Netflix. The more you can do in your car during the commute, the more time you can get back so you can do other life things. Some people may consider playing video games to be a terrible waste of time, but at least when you play video games you create jobs, unlike time wasted driving.
Autopilot is only just reaching the low hanging fruit. It works where driving is simple. Almost as simple as being in the open air.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I change lanes to allow them to yield, if I see them about to yield, I will anticipate where they are coming out. It's not hard. Though it may be for Autopilot.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
No, the insurance company believes it can sell more insurance, that's what matters to them.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
No, the insurance company believes it can sell more insurance, that's what matters to them.
If they wanted to sell more insurance by lowering the rates, they could have done that at any time before.
That's not even a valid question for Autopilot, since humans are doing all of the actually complicated driving anyway. When cars are fully automated, it will be a question not only of how many accidents they can avoid, but how many they cause due to not understanding how humans drive. Humans cut corners in traffic all the time in safe ways. If self driving doesn't learn to anticipate moves such us, a truck backing out slowly from an alleyway and anticipate that correctly by stopping soon enough, driving will be worse for humans. Someone like you will be saying 'see? I told you humans suck at driving', but that will be the fault of self-driving being too robotic, not the fault of the human.
Once these basic glitches are worked out, then it should be mostly safe anyway. I don't think it is too much for us to ask self driving companies to make it safer than 99% of all humans. Unless they can work out these issues, it will make things worse for everyone.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I find the whole "X or Y" discussion a little funny. If you have a system X that can prevent some cases of problems, and a system Y that can prevent some other cases of problems, then the logical solution would be to combine those systems, so that when of of the systems doesn't detect an oncoming accident the other does.
And if it were computer systems who have no other thoughts, never get bored and paid full attention 100% of the time that would be a great idea. How long could you watch the car drive before your mind starts to wander, five minutes? Fifteen? Maybe you'd pay attention the first time. The tenth? Hundredth? There's a reason semi-autonomous driving systems have tons of checks and warnings to make sure you're paying attention because otherwise we wouldn't do that. In fact many people try to cheat the systems already in place so they don't have to. The idea that human drivers could function as "co-pilots" has been so thoroughly studied and discredited I wonder which rock you've lived under for the last decade.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
They didn't have the self driving angle before. What are they supposed to do? Offer people in red cars 5% off? This way they have their angle and they get self driving fanatics like you creaming in their pants.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Apples to oranges, none of those things are advertised as replacing humans. Therefore, humans are expected to handle them carefully for them to be safe. Tesla on the other hand is offering me a driving service, but have no way to show me how safe their drivers are.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Yet the human who is supposed to be still paying attention in case the self-driving fucks up out of nowhere is more likely to be texting at that point in time.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
How does taking 5% off translate into paying for it? The real cost comes when the premiums go up after the accident. You are saying insurance companies aren't raising premiums for the driver any more?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
How does taking 5% off translate into paying for it?
You can't take 5% off the premium if you're not willing to provide the insurance in the first place.
The real cost comes when the premiums go up after the accident
So what ? Overall you're still paying less. You get 5% discount, and fewer accidents.
The article talks about one insurance company; the headline says "insurers". Not the best job composing that headline.
It's hardly a driving service - at least yet.
But let's say a common scenario in traffic: you need to peek to your shoulder to ensure there's no another vehicle. And what if at that instant someone in front you you does something surprising? Well, you just enable autopilot before the peek and you're better off than before.
Can't say I have ever in my life been in a vehicle with a person I didn't feel safe with. Maybe 1 in 10,000 you see doing something stupid and you're ready to call everyone a bad driver.
Incredible. I see drivers doing stupid things all the time. Occasionally I do something stupid, or at least sub-optimal, myself, but at least I recognise it and try to learn from it. I rarely feel at ease with someone else driving, and sometimes I have been terrified.
Having said that, I am unconvinced by autopilots. After all they are programmed by humans who, as we agree, can be stupid. As with driving, I see plenty of examples of stupid programming.
I think OP must be blind or something.
The point is whether you absolutely know whether you are safer than Autopilot or not. If you don't know, then you shouldn't be using it until you do know.
I know I am safer than the average driver on the basis that my insurance premiums are far lower than average (despite driving a car more powerful than most), perhaps because I have never had an accident. Telling me that autopilots are safer than the average driver does not give me me much re-assurance, in fact it is damning with faint praise.
The question is how do the people actually that good rate themselves.
By their insurance discount?
if it is put into a car and offers to drive independent of your control, then it's a driving service. Just not a very good one.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
But if Autopilot gets in an accident, your premiums go up, thus you pay for it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I see drivers doing stupid things also. I also see many more drivers driving well. I remember the stupid ones better, since (a) they're the ones I have to watch for, (b) they're the ones who probably inconvenienced me, and (c) they're the ones I address comments to from the privacy of my vehicle. However, almost every time I see a driver do a boneheaded maneuver, I see many more people just driving like they should.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Driving skill or safety? I don't think my driving skills are up to average. On the other hand, I get into sufficiently few accidents that I get the maximum safety discount on my insurance. I allow for my lack of skill (and possibly overcompensate), and don't do anything likely to cause an accident.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You seem not to understand how insurance works. Insurance companies carefully calculate the cost of insuring certain market segments, and they base their premium rates on those. That's how they avoid going out of business.
Offering lower rates to a certain group will indeed attract more business for that group, but it will mean losing money, which companies in general don't like to do. It isn't going to attract much business to other groups. When I talk to an agent, I want to know how much I'll be paying, not how much somebody else would be paying.
If an insurance company offers a reduced rate to a group, it is because they have figured that that group is lesser risk.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
An important facet of the task is to be aware enough of other drivers to avoid the accident they are about to cause. Drunks, sleepyheads, lane weavers, light runners, ghosters that cluelessly drive in other people's blind spots (not just yours, either) tailgaters, fail-to-signalers, aggressive speeders, lane laggards, people pulling trailers too fast, poorly loaded, etc. And then there are road hazards. And people who completely change their driving style the instant they see a cop or their radar detector goes off. And cars carrying poorly disciplined children or excitable pets. People having arguments.
Most drivers are not very good. They may think they are - but they aren't.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.