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

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

#91
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.

Even if you were to pay the fee or drive a gas car, or you pay for the 'better' insurance to not be tracked, your movements are still recorded everywhere with ALPR cameras.

If not your car itself.

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

#92
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…

> Road taxes are often use-based, where gasoline is the way they extract "use" taxes.

26% of road funds come from gas taxes; 11 percent from tolls, another 25% from the federal government: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

Now, about those "paying their fair share of 25% of the cost of the roads" gas taxes: In Utah, the gas tax was $0.245 in 1997. Today it's $0.34, when adjusting for inflation alone it should be $0.46, so drivers have received what amounts to a 25% tax reduction in the last ~30 years. The federal gas tax hasn't been raised in thirty years. So there's another tax break drivers have gotten.

That's just inflation. Average fuel economy has risen from 18mpg to over 22, which means per mile drivers are paying on average 20% less of "their fair share" due to mileage increases alone.

So it's a bit weird that suddenly people in gas cars are getting high and mighty about EV owners "not paying their fair share."

> EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher rate. And it's not linear wear per pound, either.

The Ford F150, which is the most popular "car" sold in America, is between 4,069 and 5,697 pounds.

A Tesla Model 3 is 3,862 to 4,048 lbs. A Chevy Bolt is ~3600lb.

Yet..who gets taxed more by Utah? Does Utah give people with small 3000lb gas cars a tax break, and penalize 5,000lb pickup truck owners?

Also, where were all these concerns about increased road wear on budgets when American purchasing trends tilted toward larger and heavier SUVs and pickups? Average vehicle weight has risen 10%+ since 1990.

EVs start to get popular and suddenly now everyone's very concerned about...road wear?

Bish, please.

Utah didn't want to raise the gas tax (it's a political third rail) so they relied on their extremely stupid electorate to buy up the myth that drivers in gas cars are "paying their fair share" and instituted a punitive tax on EVs which Dumb Yokel Bob fully supports because it's sticking it to those "libruhls in them fuckin' priuses an shit", believing everything he hears on conservative radio about EVs (for example, that they 'cost' more CO2 to make than a regular car. Which is true....until around 14,000 miles into ownership when the EV breaks even compared to a gas car.)

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

#93
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…

I had the same experience. The beeline that Progressive's snapshot device did actively encouraged worse driving behavior in a city.

I could see it being more beneficial in rural communities where there's less erratic driver behavior, but in a major US city it was doing me no favors.

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

#94
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About $868 of that is for "Comprehensive" and "Collision" coverage, if it helps. It's possible it's just me, though. I've crashed my car once, and been hit on my motorcycle. In general, given that, I would assume it's more because of that than in general since I'm obviously a high risk driver. When I set my address from San Jose to San Francisco (I used to store the car at my friend's) it went up $200/yr so that's th…

> How much do you pay? About $1100 (comprehensive). I’ve never made a claim and have no speeding points, so I guess I get a good rate; but the OP rate still seemed pretty high for the model.

I got Geico to make me a quote for this Porsche 911 https://www.carfax.com/vehicle/WP0AC2A90KS149357 and it comes to about $4.4k where I am.

And if I added this Porsche 911 https://www.carfax.com/vehicle/WP0CA29984S653662 it goes to $1.8k.

So I suppose it comes down to driver risk in the end since my car is only $32k, not $200k like yours.

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

#95
post #52

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.

Diesel is already taxed at a higher rate than gasoline.

A diesel truck that has three times the pressure on the road and easily ten to fifteen times the total weight, while getting about 1/3rd the gas mileage of the average US passenger vehicle.

Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car for what amounts to shouldn't we expect that a vehicle exerting three times the pressure on the road should pay more per mile than 'just' 3x what you and I do in our gas passenger cars?

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

#96
post #38
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try living in California. My $42K EV was closer to $600 for the registration.

Seattle suburbs here. I pay about $500 a year to register my (gas) car so someday I can ride the train they broke ground on 25 years ago.

West Seattle? :)

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

#97
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…

It's shocking to me that it requires an OBD device and a surveillance app. Can't they just check your odometer when you go to update your registration?

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

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably safe to assume that this feed will be sold to Lexis Nexis or Acxiom, etc. From there, who know how it will be used for or against you in whatever sphere of life, at whatever time.

That would be problematic when the system is linked to a car and not the driver.

Just like tracking is linked to a phone and not its owner.

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

#99
post #19
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…

It's amazing how nosey Utah is. They want to scan your DL to find out who's buying alcohol, they're demanding id based age verification for watching porn online, and apparently they want to enforce monitoring on your phone+car.

As an outsider my impression of Utah it is just a state run by a religious niche group.

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

#100
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m reasonably rich and would pay good money not to be tracked. It’s not really an option.

I’ve started seeing ads for companies that try to get your data removed from sites and data broker.[1] I don’t know how effective they are but we’ve reached an age where there is a clear market for privacy. That feels very dystopian. [1] https://incogni.com/

I’ve heard of this one too. I’m too cynical to believe it’s legit though.
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