back to article Would you let your car insurer snoop on you for a better deal?

Having your driving style assessed by a back-seat black box of tricks sounds galling – but if it can shave money off your insurance premium, a beancounting firm reckons you'll put up with it. Particularly if you're an 18-year-old pimple-faced lad. The gadget-based insurance scheme rewards careful drivers with lower premiums, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...but the electronics makers (reckon the insurers have all the information they need)" dont give a shite, as long as they buy their wares.

    This is total bolloks and an accurate demonstration of "Never listen to the salesmen".

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Great, Now i've got to avoid the twonk taking the corner at 2MPH!

    This makes the roads more dangerous, not safer!

    English wankers know now't.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's a shame...

    ...that this combined accelerometer, GPS, and GSM-backchannel cannot be used for something more productive - like automatically telling the council where all the frikkin potholes are.

  4. adnim
    Joke

    Yes I would

    providing I can turn it of when I am pissed.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is not in and of itself dangerous

    Undertaking isn't dangerous?

    Consider that on a motorway the person you are passing on the left can move into the left lane without indicating, which isn't required when moving left, and if you slam into the back of them it's your fault, or your funeral.

    If you're not overtaking you have no business being anywhere but the left hand lane. It's the first rule in the highway code: keep left. And I have no sympathy without anyone getting a fine for being in the middle or right lane when the lane to the left is clear either.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If a vehicle moved from L2 into L1 without (i) indicating or (ii) ensuring that it was clear, then that driver would be guilty of Driving without Due Care and Attention (s3, RTA 1988).

      Pity that these gadgets won't do anything to prevent muppets like this...

  6. John70

    Under 25s

    Co-operative Insurance are already offering discounted insurance for under 25's if they have a black box fitted.

    http://www.co-operativeinsurance.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1228203835143,CFSweb/Page/Insurance-Car

    They had this scheme for some time now.

  7. Dave 15

    Total stuff and nonsense. There is a problem with the ideas suggested - cornering, accelerating, swerving, braking may actually not be dangerous depending on the circumstance.

    For others...

    undertaking is not dangerous - the person being undertaken is the dangerous inattentive buffoon who frankly should be in their car while it is compulsorily crushed. I am SICK to the back teeth of seeing idiot smart arses doing 55mph in the outside lane of a dual carriageway for 15 and 20 miles until it is time for them to turn off and then getting grumpy when my 30 year old car struggles up their inside so I can do 60mph. Oh and BTW I am the wrong side of 45.

    tail gating is usually a problem of frustration at the idiot 55mph driver above - this is commonly used when they are overtaking a lorry that is doing 54.999999999mph - quite often actually two lorries - and the idiot driver reaches a hill and finds is speed reduces to 54.9999999998 mph and he slides back for a few miles before accelerating on the downslope and keeping this going for hours at a time. Again, the answer is not to get upset at the tailgater but to crush the idiot mobile traffic jam.

    Some notably dangerous occurances I see everyday.... I am coming down the slip road, I do not believe that is a giveway line at the bottom of the slip road (go read your highway code - it bloody well is), I don't care that you have no where to pull out into because the lane next to you is blocked, I don't want to adjust my speed to fall into the gap a bit behind you, or accelerate infront of the lorry you are following... no what I want you to do is to risk your life braking heavily while hoping the lorry behind won't crush you so I can just meander off the slip road as I see fit. Frankly don't ever try this with me as I will just keep rolling in my beaten up old car and shove you in the ditch you belong in.

    What we need is more police doing sensible checks on the road, scrap the stupid out of town speed restrictions and cameras (after all, are you seriously telling me that a 190mph superbike is dangerous at 75mph on a dual carriageway but an Ausin 7 with prestretched cable operated rear brakes and no pedal brake on the front at all is safe at 70mph? I hope not - if you are you haven't driven them both, and I have).

    As for a black box in the car - another thin wedge here - for now its about saving insurance, next it will be for collecting tax, then it will be for spying on your every move. The aim of all governments - Labour or Conservative - is to ensure the continued power of the politician by makign sure you have absolutely no rights or power at all. This 'vote' you think you have - do you honestly really believe it changes one thing one jot? What is the difference between the situation now and 3 years ago apart from how ugly the current pinup PM is?

  8. Tieger
    Thumb Down

    interesting idea, but...

    sadly, its pretty much bollocks in a lot of situations.

    say i'm driving along, and suddenly (so says my little box of tricks) swerve to the right into the opposite lane in a place where the road markings say i shouldnt, and then pull back to the left.

    one interpretation (the one i'd expect the insurers to go with) is that i just randomly pulled over to the right into oncoming traffic, or maybe overtook someone in a place the insurer doesnt like, and so hike my premium.

    but it could just as easily be that i was happily driving along, when someone tried to drive into the side of me from a sideroad, but i had fast enough reactions to see there was nothing coming the other way, pull out of the way and go round them, while someone else might have slammed on their brakes and caused an accident (which, technically, wasnt their fault...) as the 40 tonne truck following 10 yards behind them couldnt stop in time.

    out of those 2 drivers, which is actually safer? and which one does the little box of tricks say is a reckless driver who randomly drives in the wrong lane?

    and as someone who works within/for the insurance industry, i can be fairly certain that if they go for this, it'll only be because they can charge more money overall. they dont care about fairness, or treating people nicely, or loyalty, or for that matter about being a safe driver - they care about charging more and paying less premiums.

  9. Dave 15

    Undertaking isn't dangerous?

    Undertaking isn't dangerous?

    No its not. The sort of person that is undertaken is the sort that is NEVER going to move out of the overtaking lane until their junction is imminent. Therefore undertaking them is at most risky at a junction, but never realistically dangerous. Most people I undertake are undertaken with an entire empty lane between them (in the overtaking lane) and myself (in the correct normal lane). The middle (also over taking lane) is usually empty for at least 2 miles.

    As I said, undertaking is not dangerous, although I sometimes wish being undertaken was a capital offence.

  10. K. Adams
    Big Brother

    Over here, West of The Big Pond...

    ... Progressive Insurance (based in Ohio) is already doing something like this. It's a policy add-on option called "Snapshot," and in most cases, it can be used to calculate a discount, but not raise your prevailing rate (the state of Rhode Island being the one exception, where the data can be used to raise your rate by up to 9 percent if Progressive doesn't like what it's seeing). Of course, you must abide by Progressive's Terms and Conditions, which are obviously non-negotiable.

    Personally, I wouldn't use it, even if I were a Progressive customer. There are enough Big Brothers looking over my shoulder already; I don't need another one...

  11. strum

    Not exactly new

    I signed on for one of these back in May - Insurethebox are the insurers.

    I saved about £150 (and I'm 60).

  12. earl grey
    FAIL

    just bend over and get your black box

    You know you want it.

    You know WHERE you want it.

    You know where the government wants it.

    The insurance companies are just tools.

  13. nichobe
    Thumb Down

    5th Element Taxi scene comes to mind

    What happens if I need to swerve to avoid a mother/child collision?

    Will I then have a bad swerve record that I will need to submit an exemption form for?

  14. Cyclist
    Thumb Up

    How about the twunt next door

    Our neighbour's 17-y-o boy recently passed his test, and has become twat of the decade in next to no time. From being the nice lad who used to live next door he's now a king-of-the-fucking-road idiot who drives up our narrow side road at top speed, giving it big stick through the gears and stopping on a sixpence outside his front door.

    Can I buy one of these boxes and stick it in his boot? Or better still can I buy or borrow a 12-bore from our local farmer and blow his bloody head of next time I see him storming up the road? Please say yes.

  15. kain preacher

    @Armando 123

    What ?? Out here the CHP will give you a nice fat ticket for doing 40 in the fast lane. They have given people tickets for doing 55 in the fast lane when the speed limit is 65. No special law needed it , it's called impeding traffic . There had to be some thing else to the ACLU challenge.

  16. ben 29
    FAIL

    If the box has GPS

    It will be useless in my car when the stereo is on.... for some reason if you switch the car stereo on any GPS device in range (up to about 1m from the car IIRC) loses lock. Tested on a stand alone GPS receiver bluetooth paired to a PDA, a Garmin Nuvii, HTC Desire (2 off), Motorola Defy, Sony Ericsson W810i

    Much fun could be had switching the stereo on and off... more likely they would accuse me of tampering with the box :(

  17. Dropper
    Stop

    Not the point

    When a corporate introduces something intrusive that will give you a "special rate" or a free mug or a $10 spa gift certificate please be aware that you are enabling something that will eventually become compulsory, under the "if you have nothing to hide" banner.

    What provides a discount now will equate to "we won't insure you unless you agree to installing this" later. You might even find it becomes law if the right backhanders find their way into politicians pockets, along with prepared speeches about how much the public loves being spied on (after all a whole bunch volunteered to do it) and of course, won't someone please think of the children (sitting in the back seat).

    Paranoid? Yes, but also very much a realist. Watching every little thing we do is the world we're heading towards, so I'd appreciate it if no one volunteers to help some smarmy cunt in an insurance suit charge me more because I refuse to install one of those black boxes.

  18. Martin Usher
    Big Brother

    Realtime Display?

    It will be like those fuel economy displays......depending on what you're doing you'll be in the green or red zone, maybe even the noise of the automatic traffic ticket printer.....

    Its a nice idea but so easy to abuse.....

  19. Dave 120

    Highway code 139

    • only overtake on the left if the vehicle in front is signalling to turn right, and there is room to do so

    • stay in your lane if traffic is moving slowly in queues. If the queue on your right is moving more slowly than you are, you may pass on the left

  20. Daniel 4

    Would you let your car insurer snoop on you for a better deal?

    Not only no, but hell no!

    It has nothing to do with my driving, either - I had one minor traffic violation my first year driving, and a perfectly clean record for well over a decade (approaching two now!) since. It's all about mission creep, black boxes in my car, and, if the truth is to be known, OnStar. We've already seen that the authorities will take advantage, with secret court orders if necessary, any technology we allow in our vehicles. I'd rather drive a 1970's smoke belching diesel than put up with that.

    -d

  21. LarsG

    This is the Chief Constable...

    'Would you mind awfully if we could have little Johnnys driving data?'

    'Sorry no!'

    'I have a court order in my hand!'

    'No problem sir, and would you like a rub of my........'

    (Not the nine oclock news for the oldies out there)

  22. Ogi
    Happy

    @Steven, Dibbley, etc...

    The Car is a 1982 Porsche 944, 2.5L. Insured with Chaucer classic car insurance. £300 per year fully comp, with no mile limits (but I told them I'd drive less than 10k a year as an estimate) and free 90 day insurance if I take the car to Europe.

    One thing I have is that I bunged an extra £20 a month to my rent and got a flat with a gated parking spot. This probably lowered the insurance a bit (As old cars generally don't have as good security systems against break in)

    Also came with free breakdown cover in the UK. Didn't even offer me the option of the GPS module, and to be honest, I'm not sure where they would stick it. The most advanced piece of electronics in the car is the cassette radio.

    The car is my main driver, it is my sole car (I am a named driver on a friends 2004 VW Golf TDI though, that's £500 per yr, but I don't drive that often). I live in an apartment in London, and only have one parking spot available (otherwise I would have bought quite a few cars by now, including the BMW 635csi E24 ).

    The E30 series should be coming into the category now. I believe the cutoff is 1983 at the moment, so the oldest models should be qualifying as classic any year now.

    Also not sure why I'd tell porkies about this, I don't get much out of making this up and posting it on the net...

    (and if you think this is a porky, you should meet a mate of mine, he managed at the age of 20 to get insurance on a 90's Mitsubishi 300ZX (3.0L Twin-turbo V6) for some really small money. All these years later, I'm still not quite sure how he pulled that one off...)

    I guess the insurance companies figure that if you buy an old car, you know what you're doing, and won't wrap it round the nearest lamp-post (you don't see many chavs driving round in classics).

    Also, I agreed to a high personal excess, it's £750 (about how much the car itself is worth, before I do work on it), but I'm fine with that.

    @Jean Le PHARMACIEN: Lol, typo, Freudian slip? Autospell? Don't have a clue mate.. :P Well spotted though! :)

  23. Florence Stanfield
    Happy

    An insurance firm already does this!

    My 23 year old daughter passed her driving test this year all insurers were asking over £1,500 for her she went with insurethebox who place a black box in her car. This gives her feedback about her driving plus bonus miles over the month for good driving.

    She is happy as without them she couldn't afford to drive.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My 18 yo lad got tracker insurance

    On a small engine Citroen C1 (low ins. group) the first quite he got was £9k. Time to shop around. Got it down to "only" £4.5K, (had he been a girl that would have been £3.5k but he declined the option of surgery). More research required. With a black box (Aviva) and proof of Pass Plus, just shy of £2k.

    Someone (Aviva?) had a black box pay per mile scheme a few years back, that was a fail but the current scheme is OK, there is an annual mileage cap can't recall what but adequate. At renewal we'll look at the co-op (and others) scheme where good driving is rewarded quarterly with a premium reduction - yes I know good driving isn't as simple as stats on aggressive accelleration/braking/cornering and attention to speed limits but those are significant factors.

    There's a web address to view stats (and where dad can find out in which quiet country lane he spent an hour parked, though no information about his passenger - probably just as well there's not a camera feed...). He's on a black-box monitored curfew, no driving 23:00 to 05:00. Fact is accident stats for under 25s esp. male new drivers and 23:00-05:00 are pretty scary. I'm happier knowing that he knows Big Brother is watching. He could lift the curfew by paying an additional £1k premium - but that would be better spent on one £20 taxi trip a week (if necessary).

    As far as his safety goes I'm more concerned about him as a passenger in his friend's car : more powerful vehicle, conventional (full price) insurance, tendency to show off...

    One question I have is: sometimes when on a new stretch of road my satnav doesn't know about it thinks I'm in a field. Wonder how that looks on the monitor stats? Apparently driving at speed in a field might look quite dodgy!

    I imagine the expense of the box and monitoring systems at present probably eliminates the cost benefit for older experienced drivers only paying a few hundred quid insurance but for saving a couple of grand a year while building up a no claims history it's an acceptable compromise.

  25. Roger Mew

    Box of trix

    So, lets establish the situation, :- me driving in the nearside lane on and empty motorway at 95 Mph, other person

    they are driving on a busy motorway at 50 and stop in the middle lane to read a road sign-

    Oh yes seems like thats good, I will loose out,

    So again busy road junction, I am in the offside lane and lights turn green and I zip it quickly across the junction , the other oh yes not paying attention, light turns green and he does not move, car behind bips him, he moves forward slowly as he is in the wrong gear and consequently does not clear the junction before the lights are red, car behind involved in smash and gets done for jumping lights which he was not, just held up by twit. And so on.

    The ONLY way is by cameras recording all and being able to store information that way.

    The fact I zip it away from lights, like to power around corners, get to max speed asap and so on I will get clobbered, poodle around causing accidents, thats OK.

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