Live data from Hacker News

To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

money.com

141–150 of 414 posts

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#141

It's starting to feel like Europe. In Belgium you couldn't drive a miles without being recorded on some ALPR camera. Speed cameras everywhere. And the current rage is average speed cameras. So they take your photo on an on-ramp and when you take the exit they'll calculate the average. Above the speed limit: ticket. With no way of facing your accuser in court. The machine said so...

That’s a dystopia right there. Would quit my job before participating in that.

Why is this comment downvoted? I think is pretty fair to say "I would quit my job before participating in that". More tech workers should say "NO" to so much BS today. Tech does give us so much good things, but we drive full speed into a new kind of slavery.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#142
post #6

Utah views EV drivers as tax evaders because they don't buy gas. So they have a "deal" for EV drivers: pay an exorbitant registration fee (hundreds more than other vehicles) or install an OBD device in your car and carry a surveillance app to be charged for how much your vehicle is driven [0]. The measurement route requires 2 separate accounts with 3rd parties, one of which has your payment information on file. Given…

> Utah views EV drivers as tax evaders because they don't buy gas That's because they kind of are. Road taxes are often use-based, where gasoline is the way they extract "use" taxes. EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher weight. And it's not linear wear per pound, either. This is going to require a significant shift about how states and cities think about their road maintenanc…

Instead of that, they could mandate meters on the charging stations that add a surcharge to the electricity. That would be less invasive, and be analogous to how they collect usage fees by taxing gas.

There is a general legal principle that the state must use the least intrusive means to accomplish a goal. A lawsuit might force a change.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figure it’s semi trucks that do almost all the road damage. We could just tax the trucks, but that would just get passed along in higher prices for everything. So might as well pay for road repair out of the general fund than have special taxes.

You're right about semis. The most cost effective thing for keeping the roads better is weigh stations open all the time. However, EVs cause around 2x more damage to roads than non EVs. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/26/pothole-electric... Wait til the semi EVs hit the road! EVs also have significantly higher particulate emissions due to increased tire wear.

You know you linked to a fictional news site, right?

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#144
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is respect for social contracts really all that's necessary? I don't see it as adversarial, so much as I see it as "normal _and_..." for many vendors. For instance, even if I could buy a TV and then return it for free, why not return it and charge a fee? Most people are willing to pay the fee, even if they wouldn't return it, so what's the incentive for any vendor to not charge the fee?

Because they really don't like the TV for some reason/ Or an expensive purchase that should last for years falls apart after 9 months? Leaches who have made many companies cut back on generous return policies with "my ten year old coat is worn out, replace it" are basically turds who make life worse for other people. ADDED: Furthermore, research has has shown (e.g late pickups at daycare) that when you add a fee to a…

> (e.g late pickups at daycare)

I've often wondered how well it would work if you went "right well, if you pick them up 15 minutes late today, you've got to pick them up 15 minutes early tomorrow", or "... drop them off 15 minutes late tomorrow".

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#145
post #56

When I tried this a few years ago, the unit beeped when it sensed braking or lane changes it didn’t like. It beeped constantly in the course of normal New York City defensive driving. I found myself running more than one red light to avoid the “hard braking” beep. It completely eliminated any enjoyment of the new car I sacrificed to save up for. After 3 months I was horrified to get an email with a list of time stamp…

We have similar devices on our vehicles at work.

I can tell you that they don't work on Landrover Defenders, because they are reading about half way to "OMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING" just sitting in the car park with the engine idling.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Utah views EV drivers as tax evaders because they don't buy gas That's because they kind of are. Road taxes are often use-based, where gasoline is the way they extract "use" taxes. EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher weight. And it's not linear wear per pound, either. This is going to require a significant shift about how states and cities think about their road maintenanc…

Instead of that, they could mandate meters on the charging stations that add a surcharge to the electricity. That would be less invasive, and be analogous to how they collect usage fees by taxing gas. There is a general legal principle that the state must use the least intrusive means to accomplish a goal. A lawsuit might force a change.

Except you can charge from every single outlet.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right about semis. The most cost effective thing for keeping the roads better is weigh stations open all the time. However, EVs cause around 2x more damage to roads than non EVs. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/26/pothole-electric... Wait til the semi EVs hit the road! EVs also have significantly higher particulate emissions due to increased tire wear.

You know you linked to a fictional news site, right?

Terrible source, yes, but it happens to be at least roughly on point in this instance; if my dim recall of the relevant engineering is correct, road damage grows quadratically to the pressure exerted on the road by tires, and EVs are typically nearly twice as heavy as ICE vehicles.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. By states, car makers, the federal government, and third party analysis firms. It's incredibly uncontroversial. It's even got a name, and associated math: it's called the Fourth Power Law https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-... > shouldn't we expect…

> This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. It is pretty much insignificant increase on road wear vs what trucks put on it?

Yes, but HGVs don't go onto residential roads.

If you meant SUVs or pick-ups by trucks yeah, insignificant and a bad proxy for weight anyway. No point in taxing EVs when what you need to tax is weight.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#149
post #2

It feels to me more and more like you need to be rich to afford living without bartering away your personal information. I'm getting to be middle aged now, and have noticed a fatalistic attitude towards this by gen Z; kind of "it's impossible to maintain privacy, so I might as well milk my loss of privacy for all it's worth." And I'm wondering now if that's not completely correct.

I think the people who say “the public doesn’t care about privacy” are either completely ignoring the fact that most people will give it up if it means the product is cheaper (because, financial survival) or they are deliberately pushing the agenda.

Re: To save money on insurance, drivers agree to intrusive monitoring technology

#150
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds to me like the system is working exactly as it should.

It's kind of funny, because from my perspective I'm an old man who learned himself a trade decades ago and worked things right to the point that I don't have to drive around a shit-box anymore, but to you I'm a privileged asshole. Which one is the truth?

One thing to look into. If you're married, give the vehicle to your spouse, and note the amount of the gift in a notarized letter. That then becomes the value of the vehicle for tax purposes. We live in a state that essentially has an import tax on vehicles. It's unconstitutional, but you'd have to take that to court and that would take years. We did this with our vehicles when we moved to the state. The person at the vehicle registration place was unhappy, but they had to accept it - an extra benefit.

You're not an asshole to drive around a ride you've earned.

Statists will always find some rationale for taxing more that sounds perfectly reasonable and good, when its obvious the motivation is envy.

Post reply on HN