Did I read that right, somebody want's to tie my insurance to a cell phone that I have to purchase, pay big bucks for service and keep in my car with location services turned on ? in your dreams that's going to happen!
A mandatory tie-in to a cell phone is not going to happen any time in the foreseeable future, but it may become driven by the economics (effectively a penalty for not having it).
Insurance in Ontario is still, at least theoretically, a competitive environment. A company that puts excessive penalties on exceeding the speed limit by absurdly small thresholds or other such draconian measures will find themselves driven out of the market - and there are only SO many drivers who crawl around slowly and never break any law and never accelerate or brake and yet magically somehow never get caught by a traffic signal changing.
I think "if forced" insurance companies would be forced to admit that most people drive 20-ish km/h above speed limits and do accelerate or brake from time to time and yet somehow manage to not crash very much ...
There's one risk factor that probably could be established electronically: Using a cell phone while driving. Although ... if the insurance company makes you put an app on your phone ... it ought to be a trivial exercise for that same app to put the phone into "driving" mode (no voice calls, no touchpad interaction) if its GPS detects that it is moving while on a road (as opposed to a train). Dunno how you could make it distinguish that from being on a bus.
My head messes with the cost of repairs part of the equation.
Yes cars are more expensive to repair due to technology (And price gouging IMO)
You have a crash in your $7,000 car and the body work to fix it is $3000. But the air bags also went off and the car is a write-off.
However the air bags kept you from having serious injuries so the total payout could be substantially less. Does an air bag really a thousand dollars? or more?
I presume you meant "does an air bag really COST a thousand dollars or more". (I work in the auto industry for parts suppliers)
The airbag module itself does not cost a thousand bucks. But ... The cheap one is built into the steering wheel. The expensive ones are built behind tear-out panels in the instrument panel, the seat bolsters, the interior trim on the door panels, etc. The expensive bit after a collision isn't necessarily the airbag itself. It's the airbag plus replace the seats (ripped the seat covers apart - expensive!) plus replace the instrument panel exterior skin which generally requires tearing apart the entire instrument panel (LOTS of labour!) plus replace the A-pillar interior trim ... Basically you have to tear half the interior of the car apart and replace most of it, and that stuff is expensive!
"Which" required tech? Airbags - ABS - ESP - etc have already been required for quite a while. Or the interface for insurance company monitoring of your driving? That's actually cheap ... now that back-up cameras and the like are required, and everyone already has bluetooth etc., the incremental cost to add GPS and a cell-phone interface is trivial and lots of cars already have them. Electronics are cheap.
If you have a Tesla, it already communicates everything about you and what you're doing back to the mother-ship. GM OnStar and several others already have everything they need in order to do so, they just don't (always) do it. It's horrendous for privacy, and I'm not sure how Tesla managed to get away with it. There would be (and has been) uproar when GM tried.
Be careful what you wish for. "Intelligent Speed Adaptation" is becoming mandatory in Europe in another year or two. For now, it's going to be capable of being overridden to exceed the speed limit under certain conditions (even the regulators know that there would be backlash against forcing the driver to absolutely obey the letter of the law under every conceivable circumstance).
Backlash is the only thing we can hope for. Maybe they'll stop throwing 30 and 40 km/h speed limits everywhere when the folks responsible for writing those speed limits are themselves forced to obey them.
So this thing requires a smartphone and presumably a data plan to submit the information.
What about people with company cell phones? My mom, for example, has a company phone. She is allowed to use it for personal reasons but not beyond talk/text. Any apps or data usage is restricted to business use only. Does this mean she will be charged more for insurance for not participating? Or is she expected to go out and get a personal phone and plan simply for the insurance company to watch how she drives?
My in-laws have cell phones that they only use for emergencies and the phones don’t have data. Same question for them - will they be penalized unless they pay more for their cell phones to be ‘watched’?
So this thing requires a smartphone and presumably a data plan to submit the information.
What about people with company cell phones? My mom, for example, has a company phone. She is allowed to use it for personal reasons but not beyond talk/text. Any apps or data usage is restricted to business use only. Does this mean she will be charged more for insurance for not participating? Or is she expected to go out and get a personal phone and plan simply for the insurance company to watch how she drives?
My in-laws have cell phones that they only use for emergencies and the phones don’t have data. Same question for them - will they be penalized unless they pay more for their cell phones to be ‘watched’?
There should be no need for a cell phone to have data available. Apps can log data and then dump it when they connect to wifi. If someone was completely without data/wifi access, they could encode the required information in a text but I doubt they will bother writing that function. The bigger issue will be if you have a locked down work phone and can't install the app. Do you bother throwing an old phone in the car attached to a charger just to run the stupid app. Hopefully the developers think through that path and make an app than can run on old operating systems.
It will probably be as Brian said, not required but unless you play along, you miss out on the xx% discount being offered. That puts the onus on you to figure out how to get the data back to the insurance company.
There should be no need for a cell phone to have data available. Apps can log data and then dump it when they connect to wifi. If someone was completely without data/wifi access, they could encode the required information in a text but I doubt they will bother writing that function. The bigger issue will be if you have a locked down work phone and can't install the app. Do you bother throwing an old phone in the car attached to a charger just to run the stupid app. Hopefully the developers think through that path and make an app than can run on old operating systems.
It will probably be as Brian said, not required but unless you play along, you miss out on the xx% discount being offered. That puts the onus on you to figure out how to get the data back to the insurance company.
Let's say you manage to get everyone in the province basically required under these terms to have this monitoring app. I expect very few people would opt out, because insurance is already expensive.
So now you have this HUGE data set. Do you get to arbitrarily make rules anymore? Can you still justify classifying people who drive 5-10 over a higher risk if the data bears out there was actually no significant correlation? People who accelerate/brake "roughly" or cause high lateral acceleration? Person A who drove 5000km more in a year than Person B?
Not that I think this is a good idea. Unlike overhauling our very weak licensing system, which would be a great idea, and I personally guarantee would reduce insurance claims & cost
That’s another challenge in Ontario is data. Insurers collect a ton of data which they use to set their premiums. They are not required to justify rates based on the data - they use it to manage risk and to identify profit opportunities.
What all that means is you rates are not necessarily based on risk, a lot of it is based on insurers understanding what you are willing to pay.
Did I read that right, somebody want's to tie my insurance to a cell phone that I have to purchase, pay big bucks for service and keep in my car with location services turned on ? in your dreams that's going to happen!
Backlash is the only thing we can hope for. Maybe they'll stop throwing 30 and 40 km/h speed limits everywhere when the folks responsible for writing those speed limits are themselves forced to obey them.
I do hope that these people who write such laws are drivers/riders themselves!
Last thing I'd want is for someone with no drivers license being involved in matters like these lol.
I do hope that these people who write such laws are drivers/riders themselves!
Last thing I'd want is for someone with no drivers license being involved in matters like these lol.
Oh don't worry. There will surely be exemptions for politicians and police for security reasons. The exemptions won't be because they are above the law. Don't look behind the curtain.
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in your dreams that's going to happen!
