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Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

nytimes.com

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Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#131

Post by tiltowait »

beej71 wrote: post #104
mycologos wrote: post #59

I think there are a few reasons to be mad about this, but some are better than others: 1) People don't understand they're being monitored. I think this is a good reason to be mad. People should have some understanding of the agreements they make. It's part of being a functional adult in the world. It's also annoying that the companies keep spinning this as a tool to improve your driving, when it's clearly an attempt…

I've avoided accidents by hard breaking twice in the last two years, once from deer bounding into the road, and once from a deaf old cat walking into the street. I haven't been cited for anything in decades, and have never been in an at-fault accident. I drive the speed limit and have a dashcam. With the deer, I was actually 10 MPH under the limit. So should my rates go up for these incidents where I successfully avo…

I did pest control for a while, and my truck was equipped with a monitoring device that would beep if it detected unsafe driving. The thing was inconsistent enough to be nearly indistinguishible from random. It sometimes nagged me while driving straight at normal speeds, or going over a pot hole, or just stopping like normal at a stop light. At other times, it wouldn't go off for what should have been obvious "offenses"—hard stops, last-second swerves to avoid road debris, etc.

All in all, I think it was useless for actually policing driving behavior, but I did get identified (read: randomly selected) as the safest driver in the branch one month and got a bonus, so I guess that was nice?

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#132

Post by jgalt212 »

654wak654 wrote: post #89
jgalt212 wrote: post #22

I hope so. Get the animals off the road.

Imagine a scenario where bunch of those animals brake check you, and then your insurance company calls you up and says "Hey jgalt212, we're seeing that you your forward collion avoidance system got activated too many times this year. We're going to flag you as a tailgater and up your premium by %80. Have a lovely day."

As opposed to the jackass whose pulling high lateral G's and going 90 on the freeway. I think I can explain my way out of the insurance hike easier than the aforementioned jackass--who actually should be deemed uninsurable.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#133

Post by jrochkind1 »

fn-mote wrote: post #2

> In recent years, automakers [...] have started offering optional features in their connected-car apps that rate people’s driving. At least the programs are (currently) opt-in. This amusing anecdote is buried: > One driver lamented having data collected during a “track day,” while testing out the Corvette’s limits on a professional racetrack. > [...] he was denied auto insurance by seven companies [...]

I would be willing to bet even if you told the insurance companies it was totally legal on a professional race track -- they'd say "Nope, we still don't want to insure someone that takes his car on professional race tracks like that."

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#134

Post by jrochkind1 »

max_ wrote: post #11

The problem with such issues of data misuse is that people only provide 2 solutions. a) Go off grid. Don't use The tech that these cars make. The problem with this is that it is impractical for people that use see alot of value in using this tech. b) Pass more regulation. I am a Hayekian and I believe that regulation will not help with people that know the ins & outs of the regulation, also it's doesn't stop them. It…

> The problem with this is that it is impractical for people that use see alot of value in using this tech.

I would be happy to turn down the tech, but I wonder how long until I can't feasibly buy a car (or a car I want) without it...

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#135

Post by jrochkind1 »

> An employee familiar with G.M.’s Smart Driver said the company’s annual revenue from the program is in the low millions of dollars.

Is that a lot of money for GM? I would have guessed no, but it doesn't seem like very much for selling out their customers like this. Either it's more to GM's profits than I'd expect, or they really don't expect much PR blowback risk at all?

I don't know if they are right or wrong, but...

> Drivers who have realized what is happening are not happy. The Palm Beach Cadillac owner said he would never buy another car from G.M. He is planning to sell his Cadillac.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#136

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #125
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we should label this movement you're describing. how about "legal absolutism"? If it's not codified in law it doesn't exist and therefore cannot be a part of people's vernacular. Once this takes over we can update all our dictionaries to stop marking specific definitions as being legal definitions as they'll all, by definition (heh) be the legal definition. Or, to put it another way, this is the internet, where you'r…

> if it's not codified in law it doesn't exist and therefore cannot be a part of people's vernacular Within the context of lawmaking, for social constructs like ownership, absolutely. It’s sort of like starting with legality when writing drug regulations; outside the lawmaking context, that makes sense, within it, it’s nonsense. I’m not saying never use the word ownership in common parlance. But when discussing a new…

the comment that started this

> You should own your car and be able to do as you wish.

no "new law" was being discussed, you yourself tried to limit the scope to the legal definition and now you're trying to argue that no one should be discussing anything but the legal definition (well, for the second time, just with different words).

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#137

Post by mikewarot »

mycologos wrote: post #59

I think there are a few reasons to be mad about this, but some are better than others: 1) People don't understand they're being monitored. I think this is a good reason to be mad. People should have some understanding of the agreements they make. It's part of being a functional adult in the world. It's also annoying that the companies keep spinning this as a tool to improve your driving, when it's clearly an attempt…

> it's clearly an attempt to price insurance against a person's actual driving habits.

I think it's a combination of two strategies.

1) searching for a reason to not pay a claim.

2) searching for a reason to increase your pricing, while hiding average driver behavior from you to increase their bargaining power

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#138

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can “own” a vehicle all you want, that doesn’t give you the right to fuck with its odometer or catalytic converter. Sure it does. This entire attitude is what's scary about software, actually. See, back in the ye olden days, no one disputed your right to remove the catalytic converter on a vehicle you purchased. It was no longer legal to drive and if you were caught you could get fined. But you absolutely had t…

> there's enough control that 3rd party entities are dictating with 100% success what an owner can do with the vehicle Your key term here is control. When discussing a new rule, that is what you focus on. Use the word ownership when selling the rule, sure. My point is rules drafted starting from ownership tend to be trivial to circumvent. Because they presume ownership is a natural state when it is a social construct…

or, and this is a crazy thought, when someone pays for something they expect to have the right to do what they want with it. When a 3rd party is able to exert absolute control in hampering that ability, it becomes a problem.

you purchase a video game from your religious friend and they decide you shouldn't be allowed to play the game between 8pm and 8am and they have the ability to ensure you can't.

their ability to limit you isn't a social construct, it's as strongly bound as physical violence, and that's the problem.

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#139

Post by troyvit »

_visgean wrote: post #95
max_ wrote: post #11

The problem with such issues of data misuse is that people only provide 2 solutions. a) Go off grid. Don't use The tech that these cars make. The problem with this is that it is impractical for people that use see alot of value in using this tech. b) Pass more regulation. I am a Hayekian and I believe that regulation will not help with people that know the ins & outs of the regulation, also it's doesn't stop them. It…

> I am a Hayekian and I believe that regulation will not help with people that know the ins & outs of the regulation, also it's doesn't stop them. that is such a funny thing to say. Car industry is heavily regulated and car companies do work with the regulation. They are already regulated on safety, fuel standards, dimensions... Adding data protection into the mix makes sense.

The auto industry has fought tooth and nail against safety requirements[1] and still fights today against more stringent fuel standards[2][3].

Not only would they fight regulations like data safety that would open them to potential litigation when lose the data or sell it to the wrong player, but they would win. Privacy isn't the political football that the environment is, and you can't point to death statistics like you can with safety issues.

[1] https://www.the-rheumatologist.org/article/revisionist-histo... [2] https://texasclimatenews.org/2022/03/19/decades-of-lobbying-... [3] https://www.cbtnews.com/auto-lobby-group-warns-fuel-efficien...

Re: Automakers are sharing consumers' driving behavior with insurance companies

#140

Post by morninglight »

They share your data in order to help lower your insurance rates.

Imagine what your premium might be without this service.

For example, I drive less than 900 miles a year, have had no accidents, citations or thefts and keep my 10 year old car in a garage. Yet my payments are $1500 per year. And after getting estimates from several companies, this was the lowest we could find.

Even with this service, the inflation rate for auto insurance is higher than anything else in our family budget.

Thank the lord for data sharing.

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