Technology

Nah it was biting people long before that, those tracker apps are practically purpose built to enable abusive relationships and family dynamics.

My daughter has been trying to get me to install this for years. My refusal has been vindicated! I kept telling her I don't trust it. And she drives like me and her premiums are nuts even for her age and she's been lucky and has a great driving record.

And if they think that this monitoring is going to help anything when people know about it, they need to learn about Goodharts' Law:

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure

As soon as this becomes a thing people will get anxious and petty about it, and they will start trying to game the system, and that system gaming will take some portion of their focus away from driving and guess what, that's going to make them worse drivers.

I drive my car like I stole it. I will continue to drive my car and beat on it like it owes me money. I will never put a dongle in my obd2 port from my insurance company. I will never have any stupid app I don't need on my phone and my car is no longer hooked up to onstar. Fuck that. You put that shit in your car, you will never see lower rates, you'll just see smarter advertising. However, if you drive like me, I'm sure they'll charge you more or drop you.

Lawmakers seem to have developed a strangely keen interest in where exactly we put our dicks and the very personal repercussions of any new genetic material created from any of this dick placement. They don't seem to have any time at all for corporate abuse of the populous at large. I guess the problem perhaps is that while corporations are people, they don't have dicks?

Greedy corporations pay the lawmakers to bicker over bullshit instead of regulating them.

To anyone who doesn't believe you and thinks they might actually he able to get better rates through an app like that...

You know how health insurance companies charge hefty premiums with ridiculously high copays, but you figure "If I really need something covered, though, they'll pay it and I won't go bankrupt", but yet they still find a way to have so few scruples that they'll fight you on the services you have them billed for because they are a corporation beholden to shareholders and will do everything in their power to hang onto every single dollar possible?

Your car insurance is provided by a corporation.

I drive an electric vehicle and the unfortunate reality is, that brakes that are large enough for an emergency stop get underutilized during everyday, regenerative braking. So they rust.

My solution is: Every time I get back to our village in wet weather, I accelerate hard on the last long straight and brake hard to almost a standstill once. No more brake trouble, all four rotors squeaky clean, but any measuring device would write me up as the biggest idiot on the roads out there.

It's a scam, anyway. I did it once with Progressive when I got my first car. Had good ratings, was promised a solid discount. Next bill comes and it's the same amount as the previous bill. I call them and they say that the rate went up but with the discount it conveniently went back to the old rate.

I tried it once. Installed the app on my phone. The error rate in the data they collected was ridiculously high. Get a phone call while driving? Welp, now it says you were on the phone for 45 seconds. Playing music through the stereo? No, you were clearly using your phone the entire time. Phone slides around on the console? You clearly must have mashed the brakes.

I decided that the best way for them to determine I was a safe driver was the fact that I haven't had an accident claim in years.

(also some cars have integrated tracking)

Pretty much every single car made in the last 5 years has it. And it's been in cars starting in the 90s so just because your car is a 2015 doesn't mean it's safe.

If you care about not being tracked, look up how to remove the cellular modem in your car. I found instructions on how to do this with my vehicle and it's pretty easy.

Honestly at that point how much can you guarantee that none of those raccoons has been inside your underwear, at least partially with a claw or something?

At the rate things are going they probably will take your underwear as well.

I can see it, in slow-mo, the girl on the back would take out her phone and started recording; The car windows slowly rolled up.

No they have been tapping into data directly from people's cars and that's even worse and more unexpected

They're also buying tracking data from phone apps, so you'd need to make sure you're not running any of those either.

Does it actually tell you the results? I'm curious how they score your driving, and how effective it is. The scariest things I see on the road are things like:

• distracted driving
• tailgating
• lack of awareness

I don't see how they'd measure how safe a driver you are.

Perhaps it's just that people are more careful when they know they're being monitored, and safe drivers are more likely to opt in?

Why do you have an app for that?