Half of youngsters would swap PRIVACY for... cheaper insurance More than half of UK youngsters think being tracked is a small price to pay for cheaper car insurance, and 26 per cent will be actively seeking a pay-by-the-mile policy in the hope of saving a few quid. The numbers come from by YouGov and O2, who asked 2,000 drivers how they felt about being spied on every day - only to …
Remove all street signage, speeds signs and marker lines etc. Replace plastic dashboards with metal ones - with sharp edges. Replace plastic steering bosses with pointy metal ones. Remove all seat belts. Then - we might all drive with a little more care and consideration - for ourselves, our passengers and other road users.
Oh!, before I forget, include riding a bicycle for some 20-hours or more in a busy town / city center in the driver training, and include driving a car in same situation for those that wish to ride bicycles.
I believe the Dutch have experimented with 'shared' urban road space, were everybody, including folk who wish to cross the road (sorry, shared-space) needs to slow down and look out for each other more. I understand it has a calming effect on all forms of traffic. It's not the answer for every situation but its a brave start at re-thinking how we all use urban thoroughfares.
"Dutch have experimented with 'shared' urban road space"
Yes I've been "subjected" to that 'shared space' in Amsterdam and suburbs as a pedestrian. Not recommended - at all. fine for slowing car drivers but I witnessed horrifying intimidation of pedestrians by angrey; yelling; bell/horn ringing cyclists weaving at speed amongst pedestrians. Cyclists seemed to believe all the space was theirs; as cycles are silent, pedestrians would (out of fear) stop dead and turn to check behind before changing direction - which meant of course all sorts cannoned into them.
Before anyone dismisses being hit by a cyclist - I work in the Hosp sector NHS (critical care). had one fit 65yr old man hit by a cyclist from behind whilst walking his dog. Hit face on the ground- > compromised airway+facial fractures leading to ITU admission and nearly 6 months in hospital. being hit by a cyclist is no joke
Dutch cyclists in towns - horrifyingly arrogant, careless people with an entitlement fixation. The number I've seen with no hands on the handlebars (therefore nowhere near the brakes or the bell), reading/texting/calling/photographing ... and getting angry when a pedestrian or other cyclist dares to get in the way! They alone make the Netherlands an unpleasant place to be.
I believe Ford are introducing the ability to have each key coded so the car behaves differently so junior's key will prevent the stereo being very loud, prevent high acceleration/speed and so forth. This would stop some of the bad behaviour so having the data to show it has occurred becomes more moot and prevention is better than cure.
I agree that use needs to be sensible to keep all safe but why not use such control.
Control/limit speed - yes, to some extent. However, 50 in a 30 is far more dangerous than 80 on a motorway, assuming all other things are equal. If the system doesn't tie into GPS with a (frequently updated) map of speed limits, then it's not that much good.
Restrictions on acceleration is a bad idea IMO. There are times when you need to get moving sharpish, especially as an inexperienced driver - the last thing you need is a black box with no situational awareness artificially limiting the power available. Just have these events logged and (optionally) a notification sent to parents if the events exceed a predetermined level in a given period of time. If an accident occurs within a few seconds of one of these events and the driver is determined to be at fault, then throw the book, bookcase and possibly the wall at them.
If you make something law (i.e. comulsory car insurance), you MUST regulate the insurers. The reason it's so expensive for younger drivers is the insurers feel no remorse in ripping everyone off. They have no reason or incentive not to.
Insurance is a con.
Car insurance in the UK is the biggest swindle since the word swindle was coined.
Agree 100%.
There should be no compulsory insurance. Insure yourself against third party claims if you wish, and if you want to insure yourself against being hit by someone else that should also be up to you. Insurance would suddenly get much cheaper.
Not that this will happen of course - after all, the current system is to everyone's benefit (that is, everyone except Joe Public, who pays for the whole scam).
Oh very sensible, make 3rd Party Insurance optional - that's the insurance that covers the damage and injury you cause to other people. So if it's optional and boy racer ploughs into bus queue, crippling a dozen people, then when they try to claim compensation he just laughs and says 'Tough, I'm skint"
Compulsory 3rd party is essential - and the reason insurance for young people is so expensive is because a substantial proportion of them are crap drivers - and the costs to the insurers come, not from the repairs to their 10 year old Polo, but from the bus queue or BMW they've just totalled. Insurance is all about shared risk based on probability.
"Compulsory 3rd party is essential"
It does not cover anyone against uninsured drivers, or hit and run drivers, or cyclists/pedestrians/deer/badgers causing drivers to swerve and crash, falling trees, lightning strikes, etc, etc...
What we have at the moment is great for insurance company shareholders, lawyers, ambulance chasers, car repair shops ("insurance job is it?"), but is a rip-off for people forced to pay for compulsory insurance. Remove the captive market compulsion and watch the prices fall.
If you want to mitigate against risk, including the risk of being sued by a third party, you should insure yourself - don't ask other people to pay insurance premiums for your benefit.
"So if it's optional and boy racer ploughs into bus queue, crippling a dozen people, then when they try to claim compensation he just laughs and says 'Tough, I'm skint'
Compulsory 3rd party is essential[....]"
I totally agree. The only way it can be optional is:
chav: "Tough, I'm skint"
Judge: "Oh, but that's where you are wrong, my friend. A lung, a kidney, part of a liver (don't worry, it'll grow back, usually) all fetch a high market. Skin - do you know how valuable skin is? and we can keep harvesting it. And then there is the forced labor - I hear the Japanese would like some help with a little mess that needs cleaning up, fuku-something."
I recently spent a huge amount of time looking for insurance for my teen son and his first car. Insane amounts of money were quoted but the cheapest was not actually the telematic. The whole thing is a very expensive mystery for example the company I eventually went with offered me fully comp more cheaply than third party fire and theft.
The premium for the rejected telematic quote was £100 per hour extra for driving after 11:00PM. I can see why they would want to try and deter night-time young driving but don't forget a young person is likely to be a student and thus to have a part-time evening job and so it is with my son he clocks off at 11 and obviously needs to get home from work.
It'd be interesting to see which one of these the question actually asked was:
1. Do you mind being tracked
2. Would you agree to be tracked for a small insurance premium saving
3. Would you agree to be tracked for a large insurance premium saving
4. Would you agree to be tracked if it meant you could get car insurance?
I personally think Car Insurance especially is a legal license to steal money from motorists, its essentially a ransom. I am 35 and for the first time ever my car insurance has gone down significantly enough to make me feel like i am not being ripped off, this is despite more than 9 years no claims.
Every year premiums go up and up with no rational explanation and every motorist is hit with rising costs.
I accept the younger generation are going to take more risks and i agree that the size of the engine in their car should be limited to a sensible size to ensure they dont have the power or the speed and acceleration to be completely stupid!
Its about time the insurance companies were investigated and examined to see how they justify the colossal premiums that everyone is charged and also why these days 3PF&T is more expensive than Comprehensive insurance.
Whilst i dont want to brand all young people the same as there are some very sensible drivers out there i feel they need to be handled more practically than to keep pushing premiums up!
Case in point - it's actually often cheaper to get comprehensive insurance than it is for Third Party - the reason being that anybody who gets third party insurance is more of a crash risk, and people who claim for damage to their own car will in most cases pay far more to the insurers than they ever claim.
When you have one of these telematic policies, does it give you a big pile of T&C's about your driving parameters that you are covered for? I've never seen an actual policy...
You can bet that the data it gathers isn't just being used out of curiosity, its almost certainly going to end up being used to hike your insurance premiums once they have an idea of "true risk", which lets face it we all drove like muppets when we were younger, most of us managed to avoid accidents but these devices won't look at it like that...
How much muppetry can you get away with before they either increase your premium (quite possibly there and then) or cancel your insurance.... remembering of course that a previously cancelled insurance policy is seen by the industry as about as bad a risk indicator as you can get....
They vary but I talked to the callcentre lady for one of the companies and she said she had it in her own car and loved it. You pay a premium in the normal way but they give you a web account to which you login every week and see how many discounts you got for keeping your cornering, braking, acceleration and speed within the parameters they like. She said it had made her more conscious of her driving which yes I suppose it would really if you knew that scorching away from the lights actually cost you money.
So the "low premium" assumes that you fully comply with their rules (of course defining those rules will be neigh on impossible unless there is a feedback system in the car - maybe a dalek telling you "Driver Alert cornerning violation ten poundzzzzzzzzzzz") and beyond that they debit your card weekly for the violations?
Sounds like a potential minefield of expense.
I wonder how many kids have had their car keys taken away when Mum & Dad review the bill they have run up...
Money maker for the insurance company though - all that risk data gathered and charged for despite no actual damage being caused.
I think there's a generational gap forming.
The 'yoof of today' have grown up in a world flooded with opportunities, whilst being surrounded by technology enabling them to take advantage of those opportunities. To them technologies like targeted advertising, and location tracking are just parts of enabling them to see the opportunities and present the ones they'll have the most interest in. To them targeted ads, tracking are normal/good things.
The odd thing is, that most of the technology making this possible has/is being developed by the previous generations who mainly seem to have a problem with the very idea that the technology could track/target them.
Because it allows the insurer to be much more proactive in monitoring a policy. The tracker contains accelerometers which measure cornering and braking, as well as speed and location. From this, a profile can be built up of the driver. If you start seeing loads of sudden brakings, or speeding, or cornering, then you can weight the policy accordingly
Most telematics policies (like the one my employer offers) are issued on the basis that the named driver agrees that if their driving exceeds certain criteria, the insurer can up the premium, (or cancel the policy) which is paid monthly. They can receive feedback by SMS or email, or log into a control panel.
It also allows the insurer to confirm the car is not being used a high-risk times.
Hypothecation is the name of the game - the more fine-grained insurers can assess risk, the more the riskier drivers will have to pay for insurance.
"The tracker contains accelerometers which measure cornering and braking"
Cornering at 30 = BAD
I've been driving for decades and corner at 30! No accidents/claims!
Its all bullshite.
And the ad on the telly "Dont be stereotyped, get little box!" Err, hello stereotyped!
"cheaper car insurance" - it won't be. It will be MORE EXPENSIVE if you don't sign up, of course. And, at some point, it will become impossible to opt out, due to some "safety precautions" or "the system won't allow me to proceed sir, if you don't provide those details to me" - and ALL insurance will be expensive anyway. Sadly, such research gives a f... big green light to those (...) dazzled by "BIG DATA" - yes, let's go get them, the sheep don't mind!! :(
While the Trafficmaster system (which has 100k+ cars on O2 2G) is a standalone box I suspect the Co-Op system plugs into OBDII on the car which is why Co-op won't take cars older than 2001 when the standard was made mandatory.
This means you can't go for anything low powered and interesting, like say a 2CV or Suzuki Cappuccino.
Simon
They don't have to plug into the OBDII port - some of the boxes use telemetry from GPS module with accelerometer. A bit like a sat nav, but without screen. Some even have 2g\3g sim cards so that data can be polled without the need to remove the device.
It depends which system the insurance company has bought.
As a newly-qualified driver at 35, you'd be amazed how little difference age makes. I get quotes of 2000+ for 15 year old cars a lot. One of these boxes in my car (especially if you throw in some mileage/time restrictions) would probably so severely limit my use of the car that it wouldn't save me any money by the time I was done (having to get up at odd times for work, and usually needing more than their allowable mileage a year, amongst other things.)
It's irritating, to be fair. I understand my lack of experience makes me a bigger risk than average for my age, but I'm long past the boy-racer 85mph everywhere careless yoof stage.
I really don't understand why my desire for privacy is a problem. It's my life - you only get one chance at it, and I don't want faceless databases tracking my every move. I wonder how the human race got this far without it if it's so important. Only a small percentage of demographic data is used for genuine planning and capacity management for roads and infrastructure, 95%+ is flogged to the highest bidding advertiser. The up-side of tracking kids in cars is that judging by what I see every day on the A1 (UK) every day it'll improve driving standards dramatically, but then I also think BMW and Audi A6 drivers and white-van man drivers also need tracking cos they're FAR worse!!!
Insurers go on about personal injury claims causing price increases, yet they always sell your details to the injury lawyers after every incident.
Someone bumped the back of my 4x4 a while back, hit the spare tyre and caused no damage to my car but damaged her Fiesta quite significantly. I called my insurers to say she admitted fault, I have no damage claim and there were no injuries (I hardly even felt the impact). The insurers were absolutely adamant that I give them my mobile number in case they need to contact me about the incident, I repeatedly refused and told them I'm certain that there won't be any comeback but if there was I'd prefer it in writing anyway. Over the following week I was working from home and I received 5 calls from 3 different personal injury companies!
Another aspect of the insurance swindle is car parts. Most "genuine" parts are at least double the price of 3rd party alternatives, with many alternatives even having a higher spec. Insurance repairs are almost always done with "genuine" parts, along with exorbitant labour costs that would be considered uncompetitive if the consumer was footing the bill. Where there's an option, virtually nobody uses original manufacturer's parts except insurers and that is nothing more than a racket.
The telematic boxes are just another scam by the insurers, Just like the gender neutral pricing that "took effect" on 21 December 2012. The noises from the insurance companies were suggesting that female driver's insurance would increase by up to 25% and males should decrease substantially. My Mum's insurance price didn't change at all in January. My renewal price increased slightly in February as usual, so I switched, as usual!
I'm looking forward to the tracking collars, and having my life insurance based on where i go.
i get an electric shock if i go into an unsafe zone or something, as a warning that my premiums will go up if i remain in that area.
my commute will be filled with little zaps as my train goes through various pockets of shit to get to london.
can't wait. zaps auto uploaded to facebork as a warning to others.
oh wait. foursquare! what am i thinking. just need that uploading to an underwriters... i just had an idea for a business proposal... back in a bit.
I'm 26 and my insurance is still best part of a grand (5+ years no claims, never had an accident etc)
I didn't bother with the tracking for a simple reason, most of the driving I do is the stuff they'd describe as being high risk (late night, long distance etc)
My insurance premium aged 22 with 0NCB was 800 quid. The reason? actuarial spreadsheets can prefer you if you go against the norm. I bought a powerful 200HP RWD sports car rather than a fiesta. It's decreased every year since. Telemetrics would have given me 50 quid off. A tracker put 250 quid extra on - Thinking logically about things doesn't work with insurers, mostly because human beings do lots of illogical things.
I'd rather the government changed the law to insure the car, rather than the driver. Tie it in with tax, reduce complexity, watch the uninsured driver rate fall off a cliff. Fairer for all breeds of motorists without penalising young people too heavily - they need more training and experience, not higher premiums, it's hard enough to get a job as it is, much less so if you need a car and submit to being extorted before you can even apply...
It is very odd, like Brenda said (and I mentioned before in this thread), if you try something crazy, you can end up with lower premiums.
I too managed to insure a ~200HP RWD sports car as soon as I got my licence. It was £350 a year, which for a male in the 18-24 bracket who just got his licence, was amazing. I repeated to the insurance company 3 times to make sure they understood my age and the fact I just got my licence. They said it was all ok.
The car proved so cheap to run that I still have it, the higher fuel consumption is offset by the lower cost of insurance, tax and everything else really.
Only catch is that I don't earn a "no-claims bonus" , but the insurance is so much cheaper that I don't care, and I don't have to worry about losing it if something happens.
My 18 year-old nephew had the same thing. Insurance for 6-7 yo small shopping trolley with barely enough power to climb over a speed-bump - well over £1300. Insurance for a 1 yo 1.6 Japanese car with a reputation for being quick and handling well - £650. Which did he go for - well, after borrowing a few thousand from various relatives, he had the newer, more powerful one. (He drives it like an old man, though - he has more risk of having a claim from being shunted by a rheumatic tortoise than from hitting something himself. He even takes the bus to work because it might get scratched in the carpark! He is a grave disappointment to me ;-))
Classic cars and trucks are cheap to insure,
my 5.5ton circa 1959 truck plus 1 ton caravan@ 30 ft long costs £95.00 pa. albeit a special vehicles classification.(that used to be showman HGV) standard car tax rate
The Zetor 1971 classic tractor for road and farm use costs £35.00 pa. no tax!!
The Suzuki 5 door 1600 petrol fully comp is £250 pa, for daily use.
The PITA is the every 3 yrs full medical for the HGV licence.@ £150.00 my GP charges.
To make you laugh, Had an arrythmia show up only at night. I argued with the DVLA, medical dept.
" I dont drive my HGV at night when im asleep" They approved my HGV licence!!
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