Car tracker – black boxes. Why not?

If the monitoring shows that you’re not the good driver you think you are, then your premiums will go up up up. They’ll know your speeds, locations, times you travel, all of which may lead them to conclude after a few months that you are a high-risk driver.

Ideal. High-risk drivers should pay higher premiums so that safer drivers like me can pay less! This is a great method of actually identifying which drivers are higher-risk rather than merely relying on statistics.

I’m sure it will happen soon anyway. It may not be compulsory right away, but the negative financial implications of not doing it will be compelling I’m sure!

A decent integrated GPS with a database of speed limits would be able to topline vehicle engine output & speed to the legal limit of the stretch of road the driver is on, preventing speeding and saving lives.

EU rule by 2020 I reckon!

Some googling indicated that you’re looking at approx 11% lower premium

Can’t wait to be £20 per year better off

Well it’s not making money, it saves you money. The insurance company offers you much lower premiums – that’s the whole point

Lower until you break the speed limit, then it’s much higher. We all do it even if only a little. Which is why I told the insurance company to jog on when they asked if I’d like to have one fitted. (and the premium wasn’t that much lower)

Might as well take the next step and just have the computer drive the car as well. Bring on an electric, fully autonomous Google car and let’s see what that does to insurance premiums…

Lower until you break the speed limit, then it’s much higher.

Do you know that for a fact though? Not saying they don’t but I read the link Stoner provided and speed is not mentioned. It says they are concerned about smoothness of acceleration/braking/cornering and where & how much you drive which as far as I’m concerned are more directly relatable to having an accident than safely exceeding the speed limit (not that condone that!)

Do you know that for a fact though?

Yes, my existing insurer rang me up and asked if I’d like to have one fitted for a partial premium refund. Sticking to speed limits was part of the deal – I lost the premium reduction if I didn’t.

It was a few years back and interestingly not on the list of insurers in Stoner’s link.

My journeys in my car are private and have absolutely nothing for you or anyone else to be bothered about.

So no, stick your black boxes right up yerarse.

I Knew someone that had one of these fitted for better insurance premiums. Just by my house there’s a narrow country lane with 30 limit running along side an A road. She got a very angry letter from the insurance saying she’d been driving at 55 in a 30 because the GPS picked up the wrong the road.

she’d been driving at 55 in a 30 because the GPS picked up the wrong the road.

that’s the problem with speed limiting based on gps as well – suddenly half the cars slow down to 30 on the motorway ‘cos it runs parrelel to an urban road for 200 yards.

she’d been driving at 55 in a 30 because the GPS picked up the wrong the road.

It isn’t done like that, it’d be a nightmare to manage
They simply have a bit of software that builds a profile of your driving over a period of time, stray beyond whatever parameters they set and you’ll get flagged up.

My journeys in my car are private and have absolutely nothing for you or anyone else to be bothered about

Right. So you don’t use public roads then?

Right. So you don’t use public roads then?

You’re aware of a system that’s universally used to identify drivers?

I agree with bikebouy on this. Invasion of privacy and will penalise safe drivers who occasionally ‘make progress’ while rewarding some truly appalling drivers who can’t see further than their bonnet, so drive slowly causing mayhem all around them.

Not until you are involved in an accident…..

Back to my OP then. This isn’t about tracking all movements. My suggestion is that there is no “upload” facility and the data is only made available in the event of an accident. That’s quite different to those currently available via insurance companies and the like.

Back to my OP then. This isn’t about tracking all movements. My suggestion is that there is no “upload” facility and the data is only made available in the event of an accident. That’s quite different to those currently available via insurance companies and the like.

Well given that insurance companies are not beyond finding tiny technicalities as a means to refuse any claim, I suspect they’ll never pay out again if they get to micro analyse everyone’s driving prior to an accident and why would any insurance company that looks like their client may be the guilty party hand over the data?

This would be a great idea if.

1. The data wasn’t routinely available to insurance companies as they will just use it as a reason to increase policies. The whole point of insurance is to pool risk and reduce the cost when accidents happen. If the insurance companies can track every individuals driving and then price accordingly then its not really insurance any more, it’s just a crap savings/payment scheme.

2. The info wasn’t available to the police except in the case of an acident. Nobody is going to sign up to a scheme that means they could be done for speeding if they decide trolling along at 70 on an empty motorway in the middle of the night was a waste of everyone’s time.

3. The data can only be accessed with the drivers consent or cout order/police stop and search/reasonable suspicion powers. We don’t need to tell the autoritiries where we are 24/7. Police state anyone?

4. The data can’t be used to invalidate an insurance claim, just to assign fault.

That way its an asset to all, as it ensures fault can accuratly be attributed, encouraging careful driving as you will get done if your drive like a knob and crash/get caught red handed. But it’s not just a rod for our backs as if you drive carefully then nothing is different from today.

Might as well take the next step and just have the computer drive the car as well. Bring on an electric, fully autonomous Google car and let’s see what that does to insurance premiums…

I’m half tempted to say “yes please, bring it on” and half tempted to say no.

The reason for saying no is that last night on the M6 I had the inside lane to myself. Barely touched the cruise control. The middle and outside lanes were rammed with nose to tail cars doing anything from 55 to 80mph, constant waves of braking and accelerating. Everyone just hogging the middle lane. Utter morons.

Meanwhile, there’s me, undertaking everything for mile after empty mile. Occasionally had to jump into the middle lane to get past a lorry or a moron doing 45mph but otherwise pretty trouble free. Point being though that the motorway was running at 2/3rds capacity. Auto driven cars would up road capacity by smoothing out the traffic completely. But it would mean I couldn’t undertake everything. Hmm, dilemma. 😉

My suggestion is that there is no “upload” facility and the data is only made available in the event of an accident

Feature creep.

Pass a law, it reasonable.
1 year later extend it a little now people are more accustomed to technology / social situation.
1 year later extend it a little now people are more accustomed to technology / social situation.
1 year later extend it a little now people are more accustomed to technology / social situation.
1 year later extend it a little now people are more accustomed to technology / social situation.
and so on.

The reason for saying no is that last night on the M6 I had the inside lane to myself. Barely touched the cruise control. The middle and outside lanes were rammed with nose to tail cars doing anything from 55 to 80mph, constant waves of braking and accelerating. Everyone just hogging the middle lane. Utter morons.

That’s not the sort of environment I’d be comfortable using cruise control in

Big multi billion £ insurance companies aren’t so stupid that you can out think them on a STW thread with a few minutes thought, in general.

I would if it knocked a significant chunk off my insurance

yep I’d go for that right now. However I think the real benefit from this would be if it was rolled out across the board, every motor vehicle fitted with a black box. Bet KSIs would be drastically reduced. probability of it happening in next 10years? zilch, reckon it will happen tho.
Data upload only after an accident would keep my tinfoil hat happy but aslong as it was guaranteed there would be no snooping realtime would be better and less likely to abuse (from drivers) I guess. enforcement tricky tho.

It would benefit young drivers much more, if they can really identify boy racers. Cos there’s currently no reliable way to identify them, and all young people pay the price.

I use my mini HD camera mounted to the dash and connected to a mini usb power lead that drops into the dash whenever i’m out in the car, I’ve had one beautiful rare car written off years ago by a ditzy female driver and i’ve recently had some very close shaves due to idiots on rural roads which if there were to be a collision between two cars it would be split 50/50 between the insurers which i don’t class as fair so my HD camera is set to loop function (15mins) and it records everything out the front window, so if i’m hit and it’s no fault of my own i have the evidence of the other drivers fault.

Does it have an impact related record store function? If not it would be simple to set up.

Does it have an impact related record store function? If not it would be simple to set up.

AutoGuard does, using the accelerometer in your phone.

and it records everything out the front window, so if i’m hit and it’s no fault of my own i have the evidence of the other drivers fault.

As long as it happens within the view of the camera lens

No keen myself, i’m known to make progress when the conditions are right and woudnt want a record of this available cheers all the same.

So a tax on living in the countryside then

I live in the countryside.

The USA has recently introduced a black box requirement, without cameras. It is purely a data recorder that records various bits of data fom around the car. It is normally triggered when the airbags fire, so is a good recorder of who was doing what in an accident.

The technology is available to go further than this, but until there is legislation forcing it, I can imagine car makers will not introduce it voluntarily as there are plenty of customers who do not want “big brother to be watching them”, and therefore would buy their car elsewhere.

Haven’t Renault got a speed sign recognition system in their cars? So if the car knows the speed limit, it could feasibly control to it….

Haven’t Renault got a speed sign recognition system in their cars? So if the car knows the speed limit, it could feasibly control to it…

No need to go to the expense of sign recognition the data is all electronically available and used by companies like Road Angel

I would be interested to try them out especially with kids at/approaching driving age.

I hope they get the braking sorted out – my understanding at the moment is that sudden braking gets you brucey penalties not bonuses. As a policeman on the radio said, this is clearly absurd. If you have to brake, you have to brake!

I’ve tried both Autoguard and another app called Dailyroads Voyager. I prefer Dailyroads 🙂

I have no problem with it filming my driving as if I were to cause an accident, I would be trying to blame the other driver. But it also means I have concrete proof if someone else causes one. Plus you get to catch some funny stuff sometimes 🙂

and it records everything out the front window, so if i’m hit and it’s no fault of my own i have the evidence of the other drivers fault.

As long as it happens within the view of the camera lens

Yeah that’s the problem, although the camera does record with a 114 degree angle so it captures the full bonnet and either side of the car and clearly shows my position on the road, and coupled with the data from my Navigon GPS app on the iphone it’s better than having to rely on my word against their word in court.

It’s been beneficial to have it so far as last month a young boy pulled out on me on a country road nr to Dumfries, i was travelling at 50mph on an A road, good road conditions, and you could clearly see him pulling up to the junction, looking at me then pulling out to cross the crossroads as he clearly spun his tyres on the surface and then sat there as his car stalled half way across the road, i had to slam on the brakes and take evasive action onto the other side of the carrigeway and verge, buckling an alloy wheel to avoid him and came to a halt. he saw me get out of the car with the camera and walk towards him and he panicked and reversed back up the road he came from and turned around and shot off. I went to the police to report it and they said it was my word against his and they couldn’t do anything so i showed them the video footage and that changed their attitude right away – he’s being charged with driving with undue care and attention and fleeing the scene of an accident (I think – not 100% sure) so as he’s just passed his test i expect he’ll lose his licence – good enough for him as if it wasn’t for the fact i have track day brakes, decent expensive suspension, sticky tyres and hundreds of hours experience driving on the track he’d be in hospital and my car would be written off as it was very-very close to being a big accident due to his inexperience and stupidity.

I would assume it means regular hard braking. Normally one would not get into this situation more than once a week at most.

So… what video recorder that doesn’t need coupling to a phone?

that sudden braking gets you brucey penalties not bonuses. As a policeman on the radio said, this is clearly absurd. If you have to brake, you have to brake!

Sudden braking means you’ve failed to anticipate what is occuring on the road. It may be because someone is stupid, and not your fault, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have anticipated it. At least that was how I was taught. Having to use the brake pedal on the motorway except in complete stop start traffic similarly usually means poor anticipation.

There are probably some emergency brake situations where it really is impossible to anticipate, but realistically, every time I’ve ever emergency braked it was a failure of anticipating, even when it was someone else’s stupid manouver.

So if you’re having to use the brake absolutely loads, do tons of emergency stops, chances are you’re a really bad driver.

BMW fit gps trackers as standard, Citroen possibly other in the PSA group do too. There are benefits for all road users with Telematics.

For the insurance company which other than taking a normal business profit(if there lucky) does just pool the risk and distribute it by premiums to customers has an opportunity to reflect that premium to you as an individual not just someone like you based on age, gender, postcode, credit score.
They also get early notification of an accident which helps manage accident cost and further reduce premiums.

The motorist gets premiums that reflect their driving style, feedback on how to improve it (that’ll be popular) and all sorts of possibilities such as which roads are dangerous etc. And of course the premium will be based on them not people like them which must be good?

There are still those who wont like the idea of being tracked but unless you manage the settings of your phone thats probably happening anyway, why not allow to your advantage.

Lastly from the viewpoint of a road user who is not always a motorist if it may go someway to reduce the 3,000 deaths we have on UK roads each year and it will be a start until its linked to google maps and automated controls etc.

Whats not to like ? (as long as they don’t invent a bicycle version)

There are still those who wont like the idea of being tracked but unless you manage the settings of your phone thats probably happening anyway,

They ‘the watchers’ 😉 obviously think I’m desk-bound then