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 …
This topic is closed for new posts.
i hope they don't add a kill count statistic to my car's computer, that could get costly
I really hope all of this stuff is GPS based..
.. 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
Re: Where
Try the 4 lane A1M stretch at 3am between Peterborough and the next set of services - don't tell plod.
Re: Where
Graves End to Folkestone has once worked for me too, but I think there are now cameras..
More integration of existing technologies
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..
Speed cameras outside schools
I've never seen the logic of this. Outside a school the LAST thing I should be looking at is my speedo.
FFS Just re-read this in the voice of Paul Gadd....
Re: Speed cameras outside schools
Presumably the rev counter is more important to get the fastest gear shift ;-)
Cars that auto-regulate speed are a nightmare to drive
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.
Re: Cars that auto-regulate speed are a nightmare to drive
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.
Re: Cars that auto-regulate speed are a nightmare to drive
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
telemetry
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.
Maximum speed of 3G/4G networks
HSP(D)A was spec'ed to 100mph. So just keep your speed above, say, 120 mph and the mobile data link may fail.
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.
Agree with so much said here
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.
Re: Agree with so much said here
> 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.
Re: Agree with so much said here
Exactly, I drive a 12-year-old Ford Mundaneo, it's a 2 Litre Ghia, yet it is 3 insurance groups higher than the 2 Litre LX; same engine, same brakes, same wheels. 150 quid more to insure?!?!
Re: Agree with so much said here
leather seats better stereo and stuff like that.
Re: Agree with so much said here
Nope, same. Velour seats and radio/cassette. Besides, does having a better stereo make it a higher risk? The cost of replacement, now that it's old, is the same.
GPS blocker
So, why not block the GPS?
According to several 'cop' programmes on telly it's what crooks do all the time.
If that's the case there is no knowing when you are about to enter the twilight zone.
"wasn't me guv, must have been them car crooks"
For the benefit of law abiding drivers
"insurers are starting to use telematics to monitor good and bad driving to give better rates to careful law-abiding folks - while everyone else's prices presumably go up."
Why don't I believe that?
time?
Okay, so i might only be driving at 60mph..but do they penalise against me getting there in 5 seconds? Surely its more dangerous to boost it everywhere at redicolous acceleration - which isnt technically illegal as there is no defined measurement on top of 'due care and attention' and 'dangerous driving' but these are subjective measures not absolute.
So whilst you might catch speeders, is it speed that kills, or injures, or is it actually the uncapturable dangerous driving whilst speeding that is the issue.
Speeding at 75mph in a 70 zone causes little additional danger afterall.
Re: time?
5 seconds to 60? You don't ride motorcycles do you? :D
Re: time?
Or it's one of 254 cars listed here (possibly not even an exhaustive list, too):
http://www.autosnout.com/Cars-0-60mph-List.php
The point is...
...as citizens we agree to abide by the law of the land and the speed limit is part of the law. We do not get to choose which laws apply to us and when (there do appear to be some politicians that have trouble understanding this...).
If you think a speed limit is too low or too high, contact your local council - they have people whose job it is to review roads and make improvements, this also includes junction layouts and anything else you can do to a road.
Joining a little late on this one...
So I could read the rest of the posts, but in the interest of saving time I'll guess at the content of some of them and answer them as best as I can.
"Big Brother is watching you! 1984! Orwell wrote it as a warning, not a manual!"
Shut up. Excessive speed is the number one contributor to road traffic accidents. That's not breaking the speed limit, but speed in excess of what is safe for the conditions. When the public can be trusted to drive defensively without this kind of draconian enforcement, I'll be right behind them screaming for its abolishment.
"Why can't the car just be limited to the speed limit?"
Good question. By way of an answer, allow me to cite a few names:
Bentley
Lamborghini
Ferrari
Lotus
Mercedes
BMW
Audi
All manufacturers who sell cars boasting about the top speed. Can you put that 200MPH SLK Black on the motorway and get anywhere faster than a Ford Fiesta? No. 70MPH is the limit. Whether that is just, sensible, or valid or not is not up for discussion here. Exceeding the speed limit is illegal. Look to these manufacturers for why cars aren't limited.
"But cutting the throttle during overtaking will be dangerous!"
No. Your driving is dangerous. Yes, you can wait behind that little old lady tottering down the country lane at 40MPH. You do not need to do the speed limit; It is not a target. Good progress is always preferred, but I bet those of you whining about this thing cutting your throttle at the speed limit try and overtake a Punto doing 50MPH on a country lane in the wet. Nobody puts you in a dangerous situation except yourself, so don't go blaming technology for your lack of care.
Did I miss anything?
Re: Joining a little late on this one...
Excessive speed the number one eh ? So, what will be number one if you limit vehicles ? (and, by the way, what will stop a vehicle limited to 70 doing 70 in a 30 zone?) Vehicle mass ? So you're going to limit maximum weight ? After which another vehicle will be the heaviest. Then small tires. Or big ones. Then red cars ? Or yellow ones ? Untill you get to a sunroof or a whip antenna ?
You can prove anything with statistics. Of you want to reduce the number of car accidents you could ban cars. But you'll just end up in The Matrix.
Re: Joining a little late on this one...
"Can you put that 200MPH SLK Black on the motorway and get anywhere faster than a Ford Fiesta?"
Yes: the speed limit.
Re: Joining a little late on this one...
I hate that:
It's a limit not a target
So why do they stick it in a big red and white bullseye then?
A good driver doesn’t need to be told how fast to drive, they drive at a speeds that's appropriate for their vehicle and the current road conditions...
If accident rates were proportional to speed, then why are motorways the safest place to drive?? and why dont regular speeders crash more often??? speed is just an easily quantifiable, impossible to argue against tool for taxing the motorist...
That's a bit simplistic, isn't it. Accident rates are proportional to speed, but if ignore the environment in which you're doing that speed you may as well say that a supersonic jet doing 1000mph without accident proves that you're safe to drive down a country lane with your foot to the floor.
Or is that meant to be your point?
No, look, please try to pay attention. Accident rates are NOT proportional to speed. The effects of the accident may be but not the rate at which they occur.
I'm pretty sure most people would have rather a few small prangs in life than a fatal accident so will take the one type of proportionality over the other any day!?!
Stolen
If you hit me at 30, there's an 80% chance I'll live.
If you hit me at 40, there's an 80% chance I'll die.
Please, stop hitting me.
Re: Stolen
Stop walking in to the middle of the fecking road then :p
I'd be happy to have this...
If it was not real-time, and only used in the event of a collision to prove blame.
Rather apt I thought...
http://sniffpetrol.com/2012/05/10/micrarecall/
Especially the last sentence!
It's amazing!
Why do so many supposedly intelligent people get so worked up when talking about driving and speeding? Have we been infiltrated by a bunch of Daily Fail readers?
As for the article, the system cannot determine the quality of driving - bad drivers don't all break the speed limit but may drive too fast for wet conditions for example. All the system can do is give the insurance companies another way to avoid paying out since all the box can tell the insurers is whether or not you were breaking the speed limit and if you were, you won't be covered since breaking the limit is illegal.
Of course, the insurance companies will try to make it sound good, pay-as-you-go insurance for example (pay less for quiet times, etc) but it'll still end up as expensive as normal insurance (they'll make sure it does to keep profits up).
Two things I can't stand
When the speed limit is 65 MPH and I'm in the slow lane doing 70MPH and some ass insist on tail gating me. The other is when the person in front of me is doing the speed limit and the jack ass behind me is pissed off and wants to drive much faster . Flashing their high beams honking like I can drive through the person in front of me. The person passes on the wrong side cuts in front of me almost hitting me then slamming on his brakes cause the person in front is doing the same speed as me. If I can I'll move over and let the ass ride some one else.
Bah!
I love auto-automation. Cars that park themselves because apparently the "if you can't park it you shouldn't be driving it" test has a too-high failure rate these days. Cars that slam the brakes on if they decide you are about to have a collision. And my personal favourite: The car that abruptly slams up the windows tootsweet just before a collision in order to trap the occupants inside the flaming wreck with the headless corpse of the family dog.
Spiffy.
Overtaking & speed limiters
If you do an advanced driving course (no names) you are encouraged to make progress where safe and legal to do so. For example, under assessment, you would lose points if you failed to overtake a 50mph vehicle in an NSL when the opportunity presented itself. It is not illegal to drive at 50 mph, and outside of American public transport documentaries, no device exists to compel vehicles to a *minimum* speed. Thus we can hold it to be true that overtaking is legitimate.
We can do much to avoid dangerous situations, e.g. good observation, not overtaking in the presence of junctions and so on. However we cannot forcibly compel all other road users or indeed the environment around us to behave; it is conceivable that mid-overtake, a change will occur that makes the planned overtake unsafe. In this event, there are at least three opportunities available to us: fall back, brake in the opposite lane, or accelerate to hasten the overtake. For the same reasons as before, it is entirely conceivable that accelerating is the best option.
If you can accept that, then try this: in the current environment, speed limiters will kill people.
Id rather pay more insurance for a de-restricted car that let me decide what speed to drive, than save money and be paranoid about "Big Brother" watching my driving habits..
you would be instantly penalised for driving 31 in a 30 limit, yet would get no recognition for dropping down to 5mph in a 30limit when there are kids close by...
lol
Speed isn't the problem, people are the problem.
Speed is just a symptom of idiots who think they're more important than the highway code.
Doesn't matter if you like it, by getting into a car and driving it you've automatically accepted the Terms and Conditions. Buy a fucking airplane if you want to go faster.
TMP - the root of all evil
The basic problem with driving (and many other aspects of life in the UK) is simply Too Many People. Everyone sees adverts for cars cruising down empty highways in beautiful scenery, and gets frustrated when reality hits at rush-hour in the rain just outside Birmingham.
Trouble is that most cars are built for those lovely empty highways. Until three-quarters of the UK population disappear down some celestial rabbit hole, it just ain't going to happen.
If you've ever driven in rural North America, you'll know the speed of the other traffic is not really relevant. It only happens every half-hour or so, and when you've got 250km to the next town anyway, slowing down for a minute makes zero difference.
And those are the circumstances in which most cars perform best. For England most people would be best off with a sort of electric bicycle with a large carrying capacity, because let's face it, most city cars only ever have to perform at that level. Too many people for it to be otherwise.
Good ole' USA
Some insurers here are already offering <voluntary> tracking with the offer of possible reduced insurance costs. It was a few years ago in Canada that it became public information that newer cars were coming with black-boxes that kept track of engine speed, direction etc. and whose information was available to the prosecution. Built in cell-based roadside assistance has also been used to enforce repossession by remotely disabling the afflicted vehicle and has been used in eavesdropping.
Re: Good ole' USA
It's in all european cars, in the event of an accident, where an airbag is deployed, all data available from the preceding 20 secs of the impact is logged.
technology vs people
A/C for reasons which should be really obvious.
Did some work a few years back for a telematics startup that was looking to put monitoring and reporting into vehicles - the original application / target market was fleet management for bus companies and for high-value haulage. Biggest problem they had wasn't technical but human: at one beta tester, a bus company, they wanted to use it to make sure timetables were reasonably accurate and to investigate live updates of "expected in" times at bus stops, reflecting prevailing traffic conditions by linking monitoring info to local traffic reports. The bus company union organizer called it unjustifiable spying on union workers and threatened to shut a (small) city-wide bus network. Bus company asked for volunteer drivers, most reported intimidation for volunteering: when asked to explain what the monitoring box did and how it worked, organizer replied "it's specially designed for spying on our workers", and didn't have a clue how it worked and clearly hadn't even read the manual he'd signed off on (signature saying he'd read it). People react badly to technology at times, especially if they choose not to rtfm and behave sensibly like trying to understand how things work before condemning them as bad. That said, if insurers start charging different amounts based on driving patterns, that's not on: driving offences - proven by a court - should obviously be penalised, but not a pattern of behavior that doesn't pass the test of a court.
Every technology is potentially a double-edged sword (which, in itself I guess is a technology?): every reg reader knows that it's how people interact with the tech that matters. In this case, the "people" are the insurers, the motorists, the council workers that monitor traffic patterns etc. Reducing premiums for "known good" drivers would of course be a benefit, but we all know it won't happen: they'll increase charges to "not known" drivers. Knee-jerk reactions like shutting down a bus network 'cos you don't like the idea that people's efficiency might be monitored, or claiming that removing speed cameras will make roads safer, and so on, does not contribute to informed debate about the upsides and downsides of a particular capability - it's as helpful as fanbois claiming fruit company doesn't have access with potential to manipulate Siri.
Costs....
Well, I use rail & bus mostly. My best beloved has the car and does around 4,000 - 5,000 miles annually.
Yes, she needs it, as she would be housebound without it (arthritis). However:-
Our current car is "V" reg, and with a genuine 35k on the clock, cost us £600. When I retire (within the next 5 years, due to age & health, I add - definitely not wealth) our next vehicle will probably be of a similar vintage/price/type etc. etc.
So unless it becomes law to retro-fit these gizmos to anything actually on the road - which would be prohibitively expensive and political suicide for the proposer - I can't see it really affecting us.
This topic is closed for new posts.
