Car tracker – black boxes. Why not?

There are probably some emergency brake situations where it really is impossible to anticipate

EG startled deer who choose to run onto the road when they hear a car coming. Happens quite often near me – twice in the last month.

I doubt it’d whack your premiums up at the first emergency stop. There’d be an outrage if it did, and it’d completely fail in its purpose which is to identify risky drivers.

If it fails to identify risky drivers then the insurance company will lose money.

If it fails to identify safe drivers then people who drive well will face high premiums and leave, so the insurance company will lose money.

Something tells me they’ll be at pains to stop this happening!

As opposed to the current situation where a life style choice of living in a rural area is being subsidised by those living in urban areas?

So the tens of millions of people who were born and brought up and work in rural areas have made a lifestyle choice, have they? Do much thinking with that brain, do you? 🙄

Car tracker – black boxes. Why not?

Human nature, that’s why not.

If you provide people with an easier way to control, manipulate and regulate your life, they will do so.

The people who want this information are not your family or friends.
They only want to make money from you – they care nothing for your welfare.

Seriously, the amount of people willing to hand over control of their own lives to those who only wish to profit from them is absolutely terrifying.
Turkeys voting for Christmas indeed.

squidlord -EG startled deer who choose to run onto the road when they hear a car coming. Happens quite often near me – twice in the last month.

So you recognise there is a particular risk on a road you driver regularly (in my experience deer on the road is worse at certain times of day and year as well). Have you modified your driving behaviour? if not the insurer is probably right to assume that regular heavy braking is an indicator of risk. Thing is the insurance companies will actually have stats from these things that show people who break in particular ways are more likely to have an accident. Obviously they want you to break if you need to – but if you are breaking hard regularly one day you won’t be able to break hard enough.

So the tens of millions of people who were born and brought up and work in rural areas have made a lifestyle choice, have they? Do much thinking with that brain, do you?

Having been born somewhere does not give you a right to carry on living there. Working is a different matter but 10s of millions work in the countryside is this in the UK?

I live in the countryside but as I do I except that I will have a higher fuel cost than living in town. Its part of the compromises in life. I gain in many other ways. Financial and other.

Lol.. so what, you will forcibly move people from where they were brought up into cities? Are you the love-child of Adolf Hitler and Andrew Jackson? Remind me not to vote for you if you ever stand for anything 🙂

@ Poly

See your point. There’s one (long, straight) road near me that often has deer wandering about around it at night (they’re attracted by the apple trees there). So of course this is one to drive very carefully on.

But deer are unpredictable. Do I drive everywhere very slowly to satisfy the insurer’s black box, or drive at what I judge to be a safe speed based on the visibility and perceived braking conditions?

I suppose my point is that living in a forest, to avoid deer (and sometimes rabbits) I now find myself braking sharply more often than I ever needed to when living and driving in town. I wouldn’t say it’s more dangerous though, given that most of the time there are very few other vehicles, cyclists or pedestrians.

Squidlord you are still working on undoubtedly assumptions in your arguments!

I know. I also tend to assume that the surface is a bit slippier than I think it is. (if that makes sense – I err on the side of caution). But I’ll still need to hit the brakes sometimes to avoid a deer. But I’m prepared for this.

Cool – and with a camera, you’d be able to show why you had to brake 🙂

Cool – and with a camera, you’d be able to show why you had to brake

Can’t fault your logic! Though it would be a pain if I had to keep sending footage off the insurers.

“I’ve had six points on my licence in the past few months because I’ve been driving above the speed limit because of the tailback behind me.”

As opposed to stopping at one of the frequent laybys on the A9 and letting the tailback past.

But I agree the A9 should be a 50mph limit for HGVs

And then they’d drive at 60mph….

Just a quick warning to those who might be so inclined. The “sample” apps available from insurance companies for mobile phones have persmissions that allow them to collect the data despite it being a demo. All they have to do is combine it with your mobile number and you have a potential black mark.

Personally I wouldn’t mind cameras in case of an accident (my fault or someone elses) but I wouldn’t like GPS logging etc, because it relies on someone elses interpretation of what GPS and accelerometer data means, and since I’ve no idea how the tech works (ok I know exactly how the tech works, I just don’t have their algorithms to judge for myself), exactly how it scores me and exactly what it considers dangerous – I’m not going to have it reporting on me.

I once tried out an early version of this gadget when working for an intelligent sensor system group, it was designed to pick up on tired drivers by their steering inputs etc. It was convinced I was falling asleep down scottish country roads despite me plodding along in a company van. While this was an early version, I’m just not convinced the technology is trustworthy enough.

Seriously, the amount of people willing to hand over control of their own lives to those who only wish to profit from them is absolutely terrifying.
Turkeys voting for Christmas indeed.

lots of people drive badly because they can get away with it, not being able to might be a good (and safe) thing. Witness all/most drivers driving to the letter of the law when there’s a police car around, soon as the police car is off scene all bets are off again. I get pretty edgy about any company getting hold of my details but I think this could be a big step towards drastically reducing those ~2000 deaths p.a. our country suffers due to driving.

Of course closing the system from abuse by insurers or illegal drivers will be a sticking point.

Someone I knew was just driving along and someone was overtaking coming the other way on a blind bend and crashed into them – they didn’t have control over that.

Total freedom is not a good idea, because people will use that freedom to do bad or stupid stuff.

Seriously, the amount of people willing to hand over control of their own lives to those who only wish to profit from them is absolutely terrifying.

+1 – once installed, this stuff will never be uninstalled, and who knows what kind of government we might have in 30 years’ time?

Hah.. if we end up with a government determined to abuse human rights to that extent, a black box in your car is the least of your worries.

Hah.. if we end up with a government determined to abuse human rights to that extent, a black box in your car is the least of your worries.

To what extent?

Everyones already being “tracked” via mobile phones, debit cars, Nectar cards, email, social networking sites, security cameras and a hundreds of other things. The time to worry about this sort of thing has been and gone. Even with cars, numberplates are already tracked around the country with a network of cameras that the police have access too. Thats how they found that bloke who got lost on the m25 for 2 days (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16193588).

If you’re worried about an evil government getting in power and abusing their power, tracking cars via gps isn’t going to make much difference either way.

GPS is possibly the easiest technology to circumvent too, since the signal is incredibly weak.
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9096080/Organised-crime-routinely-jamming-GPS.html)

This forum really shows the difference between us all as humans.

I could not abide having something monitoring my driving for whatever purpose. I dislike it as a principal, its no-ones business what I get up to in my car or in the rest of my life.

Also as a couple of people mentioned I love my car and love driving and I do not drive to the letter of the law. I anticipate well and like to think I’m a reasonable driver but I also use that to determine when the letter of the law can be bent a little.

its no-ones business what I get up to in my car

Yes it is!

1) It’s the business of everyone with whom you share the roads
2) More formally, as soon as you ask someone to underwrite your actions, it’s 100% definitely someone else’s business.

Exactly that. That’s why we have laws about how you are supposed to behave when using the roads. Its just a disgrace that these laws aren’t properly enforced.

I anticipate well and like to think I’m a reasonable driver but I also use that to determine when the letter of the law can be bent a little.

thing is I think most drivers would say the same about themselves but it’s pretty obvious a lot of them are talking bollocks. Maybe sticking the letter of the law might be a good thing…no?

<edit> plus what molgrips said

I anticipate well and like to think I’m a reasonable driver but I also use that to determine when the letter of the law can be bent a little.

You’ve just illustrated perfectly why 90% of drivers rate themselves as “above average”.

I’ll admit though that the way of dealing with road traffic has always been more signage, lower speed limits (often fairly arbitrarily determined), more nannying of drivers, more traffic lights and cameras but paradoxically, less enforcement.

The result is a frustrating trawl from light to light or a pootle along a road at 40mph when some sections of that road can be safely driven at 70mph… hence drivers get bored and frustrated.

That’s exacerbated by the fact that cars now are safer and more isolating than ever, basically a lounge on wheels insulating the driver from any feelings of speed, noise and vibration so it’s ever easier to speed and ever more annoying when big brother is telling you that you can’t.

The result is a frustrating trawl from light to light or a pootle along a road at 40mph when some sections of that road can be safely driven at 70mph

In many cases they put the speed limits in after there have been many accidents on a stretch of road.

Eastern Avenue in Cardiff is now 50mph, but everyone disagrees with that and drives however fast they feel like. It used to be unrestricted, and there were so many accidents due to the crap sliproads and crap suburban drivers.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3H-b7AFnpE4/TqhDiDPG0KI/AAAAAAAAKJU/QIpbMwzYsn4/s400/boss.gif