Spy under your car bonnet 'worth billions by 2016' Technology that allows cars to snoop on motorists and tell insurers about their bad driving will form a worldwide market worth $14.4bn (£8.95bn) by 2016, analysts reckon. A new report from Juniper Research suggests intelligent vehicles chock-full of gear for navigating, recording info for insurance purposes, and telling the AA …
I think a healthy dose of realpolitik is needed here. While you're self-righteously pottering along at the legal speed limit, you are building up a queue of increasingly impatient people behind you. Eventually, they will be tempted to overtake when perhaps it's not safe to do so and risk killing themselves and you in the process. This is one reason why insurance companies will often hike premiums after an accident even if it was technically not your fault.
Whoa there! You're having a go at a guy because he CHOOSES to always drive within the legal limits, and so *might* be annoying other drivers who chose to break them?? What next, the mean bastards who lock their doors and wind up the burglars?!!
You sir are a cock.
"Whoa there! You're having a go at a guy because he CHOOSES to always drive within the legal limits, and so *might* be annoying other drivers who chose to break them?? What next, the mean bastards who lock their doors and wind up the burglars?!!"
Poor analogy. The roads are public space so you're oblidged to take other drivers into consideration. Most peoples houses are not.
"I have simply never had the need to speed - I passed physics at high school so I understand the laws of momentum."
In that case you'll also understand that T = D / V. The faster you go the quicker you get somewhere and for people under time pressure that matters.
Why do I get the feeling your the sort of sanctamonious muppet driving along in some one point buggerall wheezmatic midget mobile at 25 in a 30 zone with a 300 metre trail of cars behind you?
Meanwhile, I've had about ten speeding tickets, but zero infringement notices, never been involved in any accident at all, and no parking tickets either, and been doing a lot of driving over the same 25 years. And I understand both the laws of momentum, and the laws of courtesy and common sense - please also obey the "slower traffic keep to the outside lane" law, and we'll get along fine.
the insurance will be cheaper if you have the box.
simply because if you choose not to have the box you must be a terrible driver that drives everywhere at 200mph while running over grannies on zebra crossings, therefore insurance costs will go up by 100% for the non box insurance policies while they only go up by 50% for the policies with the boxes, therefore they can claim that by being a good driver with the box you can get cheaper insurance
oh, sorry!
did you mean insurance costs actually being cheaper than they are now?
So would I. I drive in the US, and was attempting to make my point geography-independent. In the US, the inside (left) lane is the fast lane, and the outside/right lane is the slow lane. I thought in the UK the inside=fast would be the same (as you do join the highway from the outside, right?), and left/right would be reversed for fast/slow lanes.
"I've never had a speeding ticket, infringement notice, been the cause of an accident (some fool ran into me though)"
Would that have been just after you were brake-testing them for "fun" by any chance (as per your earlier comment)?
You might not be the cause of the accident as far as liability goes, but as a friend of mine discovered, the fun soon vanishes when the other driver fails to stop and they're in a stolen car.
Why not just ban fully comp insurance covering accidents? 3rd party only.
Then everyone pays according to their behaviour.
/sarc
I have a feeling the "good drivers pay less" is a marketing tool, rather than what the insurance companies actually want. If everyone drove perfectly, their business would evaporate.
If they were that serious about improving road safety they would stop manufacturers making cars that go over the speed limits in the first place.... not that I'd actually buy one.
I wonder how many people will end up with the premiums going up when their insurance companies interpret all the pot holes as going off road!
"they would stop manufacturers making cars that go over the speed limits in the first place"
Actually they do that, they don't allow manufactures to make cars that go over the speed limit of German highways.
No that they have any problem enforcing it, after all, going past the speed of light is kind of hard.
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This things are NOT made to make things safer, cheaper r in any way beneficial to the user. They are meant to introduce more fine print to the ever increasing number of backdoor clauses in in-sewer-ants contracts so the companies don't have to cough up their cash when required.
Speeding is not dangerous, inappropriate speeding is dangerous - for example, 100mph on a 3 lane motorway at 1am in clear, dry conditions is not dangerous but 40mph in a 30mph zone near a school at home time is.
There are many more issues on the the roads which this will not address like undertaking, using mobile phones, tailgating, careless driving, not using mirrors, jumping red lights - the list goes on. Each one of these are as dangerous as inappropriate speeding yet cannot be detected so why would lack of speeding make someones insurance premiums drop?
Put more traffic police on the road and you will make driving safer. Do anything else and it is just yet another tax.
Totally agree,
I would happily pay double my road tax, IF it meant raising speed limits on Motorways/Dual Carriage Ways, and introducing more traffic police to pull over dangerous drivers...
speed is not dangerous, inappropriate speed is.
90 on a motorway, safe if you keep appropriate distance, but doing 90 in torrential rain, not a good idea.... Although many on the M6/M5 didn't seem to get that...
"There are many more issues on the the roads which this will not address like undertaking..."
Whilst I basically agree with you, I would say that if there was enough room and enough time for someone to be undertaken, there was almost certainly enough time for that person to be considerate enough to use the lane to the left (UK) of them.
Except traffic police tend to go for the low-hanging fruit, the easily-enforced speeding violations; their radar guns (and more modern variations) enable them to detect speeders at hundreds of meters away, but distracted/careless driving, not using mirrors or signals, and (to a lesser extent) tailgating all require a much closer look.
Yeah, I had a friend who used to feel that way. Then there was the time he was doing 70 on a deserted stretch of the A45 with a clear view for miles and a badger ran out in front of him, froze then executed a leap-and-scream Kamikaze-attack on the radiator grille, demolishing most of the front end of the vehicle and leaving my pal in an uncontrollable ballistic missile.
Oh how we laughed. He didn't.
It didn't do the badger much good either, and the insurance guy had a problem identifying exactly what had been liquidized all over the engine compartment.
Men just drive fast. It's the way they are. If you log the driving, lads will just steal someone else's car.
If you limit the speed, lads will just brake later, or not at all. Limiting the speed to 70, will just make lads crowd round corners that can only be taken safely at 55. Women coming the other way will still die in the head on.
Some die, some kill bus stops full of children, but most survive, and because of their experiences, they become better drivers, thus causing less accidents in the future.
I don't mind carrying a phone, even though I know it...
is used as a geolocator,
is used as a listening device etc
because I know that the government will never use that information in a court of law, they'll have to have other proof, and that's costly, so that's the safeguard.
However, this is just to generate money. I have no problem with MI5, GCHQ, HMGCC etc knowing my driving habits. In fact I'd even declare it on a job application if they asked, because I'm sure they'd check. But this is a money making scam.
(On another note - not relevant, in an earlier post, I speculated that the reusability industry would recover in a few months, when the lobbyists had learned their lesson, and started bribing the incoming govt, instead of the outgoing one. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/26/david-cameron-greenest-government-ever?newsfeed=true)
Bizarre that something's finally come up in the news that I actually care about, my right to break the traffic laws because men are better drivers. I normally don't care about anything government does, and just argue for the fun of it.
I've been telling others about how we'll be pushed into using auto-driven cars via increased insurance to drive freely, what I hadn't thought of til now is, why do I need insurance on a auto-driven car? I'm not in control, It won't be worth stealing, any contents can be covered on home insurance. Bah who am I kidding
Yes, an auto driven car presumably needs to be ensured by the software company that wrote its software, not the occupant.
A bit like a taxi has to be insured by the driver, not the passenger.
An interesting legal nightmare on its way.... maybe thats why the insurance companies are jacking the prices up, because their product will be extinct in the next few years ;-)
Yes, thats it...
Neet I say any more?
Especially to the *^^&^&&^&& who ran into the back of me last Friday on the M3 while I was travelling at 40mph in traffic.
'Didn't see you Guv'.
WTF.
The Plod wern't very impressed by his excuse either especially when they found two bald tyres, no Tax or MOT.
Now I find out he wasn't insured either.
> most insurance companies will use No MOT as a get out on their policies
Insurance companies are legally prohibited from using such issues to refuse third-party claims. They must pay if the claim is proven.
They will, however, attempt to recover such losses from the driver.
Vic.
insurance companies will get out of paying any way they can.
A friend had his insurance claim refused (third party fire & theft) after his car was stolen from his driveway (while it was up on ramps) and wrapped around a tree at the end of his road.
the reason it wrapped around the tree was because it had no brake pipes (which was the reason it was on the ramps)
the insurance company refused it on the grounds that the vehicle was not in a roadworthy condition at the time, and that he was negligent in leaving the vehicle overnight in such a state.
he took the company to court in the end (and won)
> A friend had his insurance claim refused (third party fire & theft) after his car was stolen
Yeah, you'll notice I said that insurance companies are prohibited from avoiding *third-party* claims. I said nothing about theft.
Your friend made a claim against his own insurance because of theft. This is not a third-party claim.
Vic.
.. because that's the easiest to jam. AFAIK I am under no obligation to ensure that the thing actually works. Having said that, most motronics already log speed anyway (but is provably inaccurate), I know my garage was able to verify I'd actually hit the rev limiter in top gear by jacking in (the joy of an empty German motorway :).
BTW, to the people that say "it's fun to tip the brakes if someone is too close behind me" - the absolute FIRST rule of driving is safety, so giving cause to aggression is as bad as being the aggressor itself and can lead to mucho points on your license. I have also seen people deliberately getting into the path of a speeding vehicle, which is just as insane - you are not the police (who would not do that unless they can do so safely - they prefer to follow you so they can gather video evidence), and you have no idea why the vehicle is speeding. You may be getting in the way of an emergency.
I am a trained driver (as in "having followed all
My son was gifted with a brand spanking new VW Polo 1.6i for his 17th birthday
We had a Satellite Tracking system fitted due to the high vehicle theft rate in South Africa. The provider also offered a web portal to allow his paranoid mother to keep an eye on him when he was driving. She used this religiously for the first two years (until he was 20 and had no dings, bumps or claims)
One day while over in S.A. on holiday I used his car and decided it needed to stretch its legs, so I wrung the little Polo's neck on the motorway. Mom got win of this and threatened to deprive my son of his mobile liberties, until dad 'fessed up and saved the day.
This sort of tech has been around for decades, but as it's becoming cheaper to produce, it was only a question of time before it was integrated into new vehicles. I do see the merits of this, especially in a theft/accident scenario as well as hopefully lowering premiums for responsible younger drivers, but that's doubtful..
I've driven limited vehicles;
You're behind a car doing 55, your van is limited to 62, you pull out to overtake, you get alongside the car and he speeds up to 62, now, although you have plenty of power you can't get past so have to slow down and pull back in behind where he now slows down again to 55. So you're now being permanently cockblocked by an idiot who wants to own the road.
This happens every time I'm in a limited vehicle.
Welcome to the future.
Welcome to the future indeed, but I can already see the saftey brigade will jump on this argument to say that you should not be impatient and learn to stay behind the car in front rather than engaging in a risky overtaking maneuver.
Personally I am not in favor of this technology because as many other people have pointed out the companies will use the GPS data as an excuse to avoid paying.
Any excuse from a small moment where you drove too close to the car in front momentarily inside the stopping distance whilst braking, or as others have said that one moment where you broke the speed limit by a small amount.
But the biggest worry is that this will create a big increase in the proliferation of GPS blockers by the bad guys, which can be very dangerous at screwing up sat navs for other drivers nearby.
er...there is no danger in screwing up a satnav.
Only in driving as though the satnav were authoritative.
Last week a kid was instructed by his GPS to turn left as he crossed a rail line in my town. He turned onto the trackbed, rammed the third rail and took out the line for hours. It's a wonder he wasn't fried. The real problem here? Too much satnav, too few brain cells.
I reckon people shouldn't be allowed to own technology with a higher IQ than they have.
The company that I work for sells black boxes that produce a driver style report, linked into the local speed limits and it compares the amount of harsh acceleration/ harsh braking incidents to each other. So you get a handy graph and googlemap showing which drivers are caning it down a road and having to slam the brakes on repeatedly.
Also my 50cc Moped is limited to 30 MPH and many public vehicles have speed governors fitted so If people want to not break the speed limits its very easy.
AC to avoid advertising
A few years a go some guy's Range Rover proved him innocent in a traffic case by the telemetry information on it's computer. I'm sure the 'driverless car' technology could be used to provide a co-driver type thing instead and use the information gathered to tell everybody about the stupid and irresponsible things some drivers do.
Apart from the people that speed wouldn't elect to have these devices fitted....
I'm not going to lie. I occasionally speed. Never in towns, but once I hit a motorway I don't do 70... hardly anybody does - except lorries, caravans and middle lane straddlers! This system would mean that even doing 80mph on a motorway, you are "dangerous" and should automatically pay a premium - or worst cast scenario, get a nice letter from the DVLA with 6 points deducted from your licence.
Personally, I will never have one of these fitted to my vehicle.
I've had this same discussion re "speed kills" many time.
Wrong.
Inappropriate speed kills. Poor driving kills. Tailgating and not paying proper attention kills.
We have a crazy system in the UK and there are some fairly simple solutions that would generate revenue and I believe to some extent lower costs to individuals.
First off - scrap the road excise duty. It isn't even as if it goes towards maintaining our piss poor road infrastructure any more.
Replace it by increasing the cost of petrol and diesel a few pence a litre (bear with me).
As part of this cost increase, implement third party insurance for everyone.
This has three immediate benefits:
No one can ever drive uninsured, be they foreigners or just some jumped up idiot;
You actually have a pay-as-you-use mechanism that means people like me, that have driven over a thousand miles a week for work in the past pay the appropriate amount of money for this whereas my wife, who struggles to put in 1500 miles a year doesn't pay the same as me;
You can scrap a lot of the DVLA.
Stop this crazy law whereby my son, when he hits the age of 17 can pass a test and so long as he can afford the costs associated with it can then take a Ferrari out on the motorway the day he passes.
Let's make people have lessons and possibly another test even before they are allowed on motorways. Ditto before they're allowed to drive powerful motor vehicles - hell, you have this mechanism with motorbikes.
Make people take tests more than once (another revenue generator and allows people to keep up to date on the most recent highway code - my 70+yo neighbour passed his test almost 60 years ago. The roads haven't changed much since then...?)
Let's have sensible speed limits - like others have said, let's make them genuinely variable and let's have traffic police officers back on our roads that can use their own judgement and common sense.
And if you lift the speed limits and people are caught tailgating, for example, or blasting through the lower ones in fog/rain then hit them hard.
Oh and as for the comments about lower insurance costs - I traded my ageing Porsche Boxster in lately for a Focus CC - the insurance? It went down 24 quid a year...it really is a protection racket.
> Oh and as for the comments about lower insurance costs - I traded my ageing Porsche Boxster in lately for a Focus CC - the insurance? It went down 24 quid a year...it really is a protection racket.
Or, the costs associated with claims from someone your age/job/inside leg measurement all cost roughly the same and do not depend on make of car being driven. Or it's from a different insurer (e.g. going from a specialist Porsche insurer to Aviva). Or some other factors.
Not that I disagree with your post, though.
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