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Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

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Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#31
post #27

Hot take: rapid acceleration and braking are symptoms of bad driving, and bad driving should come with barriers to being on the road with us and landing in our insurance pools. Driving information is fine to collect on public roads, and it should be ubiquitous rather than something collected in secret. Meanwhile in Texas, red light cameras can’t even be used to give tickets anymore.

What’s rapid acceleration? What’s hard braking? Are the cars measuring it accurately? Why do I want my property reporting this data without my consent?

It is a balance though. I do not like my property doing this type of reporting and I equally dislike someone else's property reporting data about me (e.g. a speed camera). But I do want everyone that uses a public good for which we pay together (roads) to follow certain rules and I want those rules enforced. These two preferences of mine are in conflict, as it is usual when considering the "commons".

Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#32

Hot take: rapid acceleration and braking are symptoms of bad driving, and bad driving should come with barriers to being on the road with us and landing in our insurance pools. Driving information is fine to collect on public roads, and it should be ubiquitous rather than something collected in secret. Meanwhile in Texas, red light cameras can’t even be used to give tickets anymore.

>>Hot take: rapid acceleration and braking are symptoms of bad driving

I might not fully agree with that (that may be what makes it hot take:)

I've been driving 30 years now, which means nothing (I firmly disagree with notion that "driving a long time" is the same as "driving well" or "being experienced":). I've taken about half a dozen safety driving courses though, and another half a dozen advanced driving courses, which hopefully might count for something - intent if nothing else. I'm trying to always be learning, practicing, paying attention to something when I'm driving - whether observational practices, state of mind, or particular skills in snow or rain etc.

I would call myself a very defensive, occasionally aggressive driver. I don't think opposite of defensive is aggressive, or that safe and defensive are same as slow. I think opposite of defensive is offensive. I try to be acutely aware of the conditions, traffic, situation, and risk - there are few people who are as paranoid about vision obstructions as I am (e.g. kid jumping behind parked car in a residential neighbourhood etc). I also try to be predictable - just like UI/UX shouldn't surprise user, I don't think I should surprise fellow drivers :). I am generally considered by friends and family to be annoyingly cautions, safe, observant, usually slow driver.

But I absolutely positively do undertake rapid acceleration and rapid braking at times, and most of the safest drivers I know do. My experience is that safest drivers are active drivers.

There's myriad different reasons to undertake rapid acceleration and braking, under myriad different circumstances and intents. But I am terrified of the future where insurance and police algorithm put a straight equation sign between them :-/

Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#33
post #28
post #8

It sounds a bit like the pre-crime angle from Minority Report . Because aggressive drivers with accidents and citations already pay higher rates. This is, I assume, penalizing aggressive driving that hasn't yet resulted in a citation or accident. Or, maybe, penalizing those that drive in riskier areas , regardless of habits? Might be interesting if someone could push for whether anyone's rates went down as a result o…

> This is, I assume, penalizing aggressive driving that hasn't yet resulted in a citation or accident. If there's no context about the situation then how do they differentiate aggressive driving vs reasonable driving? For example if you're in a 2 lane highway and the left lane is clear but you're behind someone doing 40 mph in a 60 mph on the right lane, so you quickly accelerate and switch lanes to pass them. Super…

I assume they just don't care about exceptions, and just correlate past data to actual claims to adjust their actuarial tables. But to your point, maybe that also penalizes non-aggressive things that result in accidents.

Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#35

Hot take: rapid acceleration and braking are symptoms of bad driving, and bad driving should come with barriers to being on the road with us and landing in our insurance pools. Driving information is fine to collect on public roads, and it should be ubiquitous rather than something collected in secret. Meanwhile in Texas, red light cameras can’t even be used to give tickets anymore.

The opposition to this isn't "reckless driving is good, actually", it's "surveillance capitalism is creepy and bad".

Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#36
> Kia, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Honda and Acura enable drivers to turn off data collection relating to on-road behavior in their apps.

> A Ford spokesperson told the Times that the company “does not transmit any connected vehicle data to either partner”

How about completely removing the connectivity hardware from my vehicle? I can apply software updates via USB.

Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#37
post #8

It sounds a bit like the pre-crime angle from Minority Report . Because aggressive drivers with accidents and citations already pay higher rates. This is, I assume, penalizing aggressive driving that hasn't yet resulted in a citation or accident. Or, maybe, penalizing those that drive in riskier areas , regardless of habits? Might be interesting if someone could push for whether anyone's rates went down as a result o…

That's how insurance underwriting works anyway, as gender, age, car model ect are all used to calculate a premium based on risk. In the UK you can have a "black box" fitted to your car by insurance companies, where low risk driving get you a discount on your renewal.

You can get the "black box" in the US, too.

A big difference is that with the "black box" you opt-in. It's a choice. What's being reported on happens without people even having knowledge of the situation.

Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#38
Here in Holland, we have insurance companies that give you a smartphone app.

This app runs in the background and sends your driving statistics to the company.

This is sold as a feature with the promise that if you drive better than average, you'll pay less.

Source: https://www.anwb.nl/verzekeringen/autoverzekering/veilig-rij...

Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#39

> Kia, Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Honda and Acura enable drivers to turn off data collection relating to on-road behavior in their apps. > A Ford spokesperson told the Times that the company “does not transmit any connected vehicle data to either partner” How about completely removing the connectivity hardware from my vehicle? I can apply software updates via USB.

„It‘s for your safety“

Re: Car is spying on you, leading to higher insurance rates

#40

Dahl said that his insurance agent told him the price increase was based on data collected by LexisNexis, which compiled a report tracking each and every time he and his wife drove their Chevy Bolt over a six-month period. You can request your free LexisNexis report https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/request

So credit bureaus have access to our credit history, compile and sell the reports without our consent and control. And now our cars share data so the same is done with our driving habits? The present is grim, and the future will be more so unless we step up and force lawmakers to pass laws to protect our privacy.
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