Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

money.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 414 posts

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

#351

Post by FireBeyond »

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #297
tokai wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only issue with your scenarios is that nobody will ever get in trouble for killing a pedestrian.

I don't see this has a hot take. A couple weeks ago a car intentionally rammed into me from behind. I called 911 and the police took 30 minutes to arrive on the scene. The officer talked to me for about 3 minutes and then threw up their hands and said they wouldn't do anything because I didn't have a plate number and couldn't identify the driver. The police didn't even want to bother trying to get footage from nearby…

Stepdaughter was just in an accident at an intersection. Officer, when they did show up: "Did you have a green light?" "I believe so." "Okay." Walks over to the other driver, then walks back to her with a citation in hand. "He says he definitely had a green light, so you're being cited for failure to obey a traffic control device."

The conversations with both parties amounted to less than 30 seconds, each.

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

#353

Post by FireBeyond »

SoftTalker wrote: post #309
hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see this has a hot take. A couple weeks ago a car intentionally rammed into me from behind. I called 911 and the police took 30 minutes to arrive on the scene. The officer talked to me for about 3 minutes and then threw up their hands and said they wouldn't do anything because I didn't have a plate number and couldn't identify the driver. The police didn't even want to bother trying to get footage from nearby…

More and more people have dashcams now for this reason. Of course those can be used against you as well. Honestly if there's no injury, the police aren't going to care too much about damage to your car. They figure you're insured, so you'll be taken care of. In most cities they have bigger fish to fry and a car accident with no injuries is just not that important. I don't think they're entirely wrong.

> More and more people have dashcams now for this reason. Of course those can be used against you as well.

Most dashcams can track speed too. When I was shopping for a dashcam, many of the reviews/comments said that the first thing they do when configuring their new dashcam is turn off the speed caption (sure it can still be calculated from the visuals if needed, but that's a lot more work). Last thing you want when you're using dashcam video to show someone else was at fault in an accident is their insurer to say that you were 2mph over the speed limit and therefore partially liable.

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

#354

Post by jrpt »

Spivak wrote: post #261
SavageBeast wrote: post #213

A former girlfriend of mine came home one day with one of these devices plugged into her car. She was the kind of person who just said "yes" to whatever was on the form and she simply picked the lowest price option. My head immediately goes to the scenario where theres been some kind of an accident. Maybe it's a fender bender or maybe a pedestrian was hit. In one case you have a couple damaged cars and a deductible.…

> as the insurance companies aren't in business to charge people LESS money. But the law is, auto insurance companies can only make money on scale. If they charge premiums that are out of line for the risk being covered they have to refund them. This happened when people drove significantly less during covid.

I don't know what specific program he's talking about but some of these optional programs only save you money. That's part of the sales pitch for getting people to use them. If you're afraid it'll charge you more, you wouldn't sign up. If you can demonstrate that you are a safer driver to their model, they can save you money. Whether you value that money more than your privacy is ultimately up to you.

Some state they may charge you more, however. I just looked up a few:

State Farm: "Drive Safe & Save is always a discount and does not surcharge your policy. The Drive Safe & Save discount is based on your annual mileage and basic driving characteristics."

Nationwide: "Can SmartRide increase my premium? No. This is a discount program. SmartRide measures driving behavior to reward you with a discount, not raise your rates."

Allstate: "Customers will receive a policy discount for participating in Drivewise and those who sign up and avoid risky behaviors can save on their premium. If customers stay active in Drivewise (active participation means at least one driver takes 50 trips or drives prior to renewal processing), their participation discount will not decline, but overall premium savings from Drivewise will depend on the customer's driving behaviors. Drivers who have riskier driving behaviors are expected to see a higher price from participating in Drivewise."

GEICO: "DriveEasy is a new program that promotes safe driving by providing both GEICO and the customer valuable information about individual driving patterns. This is designed to help you become a safer driver. Most customers will be able to save based on their safe driving habits, however riskier drivers may see a higher rate – depending on the state you live in."

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

#355

Post by e40 »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #288
tokai wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only issue with your scenarios is that nobody will ever get in trouble for killing a pedestrian.

That’s a disingenuous hot take. There’s a lot of discussion to be had about balancing Justice and societal/personal costs but you’ve gone and skipped past all of that.

Not at all. I've read multiple stories about how pedestrian deaths, even when warranted, rarely result in prosecution. Freakonomics even did an ep called "how to get away with murder" which was all about the statistics of pedestrian deaths.

GP had a VERY good hot take.

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

#356

Post by pengaru »

biztos wrote: post #303
maldev wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All new cars have a blackbox that records what happened before a crash. So it would just stop the constant monitoring point.

Is there a known date before which this wasn’t the case? If you want to buy a car that doesn’t have such a device, do you need a 2010? A 2019? Country dependent?

90s cars are the sweet spot where electronic fuel injection and emissions controls were mature enough to be reliable and having minimal complexity. It's mostly downhill from there.

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

#357

Post by loeg »

Robotbeat wrote: post #166
loeg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Gas taxes are a relatively small fraction of roads funding, for what it's worth.)

Indeed, gas taxes act as a sort of carbon tax, so taxing EVs to compensate is like getting rid of a carbon tax.

That isn't the stated purpose of most gas taxes, though. (The stated purpose is funding roads programs.) Intuitively, EVs still need to use and pay for road use. It's probably better for legislatures to explicitly pass carbon taxes (or similar things like cap-and-trade programs).

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

#358

Post by loeg »

tomohawk wrote: post #150
13of40 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

WA state simply does not recognize valuations below blue book. My dad sold me my first car for below (blue book) market value and it was just assessed as if it were sold at blue book value.

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

#359

Post by loeg »

gambiting wrote: post #167
j_walter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My non-plugin hybrid is charged the EV registration fee in WA. They say it's to support adding more EV chargers, but I can't even use them. It's not terrible, but an additional $75/yr is stupid IMHO...this is more expensive that my gas guzzling truck (which is higher than a car because of it's weight). https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/was...

Well it kinda makes sense - eventually you will have to use EV chargers because ICE cars will get phased out entirely(maybe not in 10 but in 30 years for sure) so we're all paying forward for the infrastructure that we're all going to need.

No -- gas cars don't pay the EV charger fee. It makes no sense for GP's non-plugin hybrid to pay it.

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

#360

Post by loeg »

danielheath wrote: post #147
Gordonjcp wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

EVs are not double the weight of comparable ICE vehicles. Yes, they are heavier -- but not 100% heavier.
Post reply on HN