Auto Insurance driving surveillance
 

Do you have a program on your phone?

We used to have a program, drivewise, with our old company, that was supposed to give us an annual 10% discount, but it seldom worked consequently we didn't receive the discount most of the time.

However, our new insurance company has one called Intellidrive that is incredibly accurate and rates each trip in five categories. Hard Braking, Acceleration, High Speed, Time of Day and Distraction.

I personally think it is great as if someone is on their phone, it will log it.

One time I pushed the button to decline an incoming call while driving and it caught it. Yesterday, I hadn't had the Challenger out for a couple months and blew the cobbs out leaving a stop light and it caught it.

I know this is a slippery slope, but I can see some benefits reducing the people constantly on their phone while driving. That problem is out of hand and in my opinion, something needs to be done.

What say you?

The gov..., er Santa, has been watching you for years.

I say I get spied on enough without embracing it. And making it mandatory is way too ****ing slippery.

And honestly, the idiots playing on their phones while driving were probably being idiots while driving before they had phones.

I've actually seen a guy kicked back on a crotch rocket, steering with his feet while texting. On the interstate, passing me doing about 90.

I have this on my work truck(except for the distracted driving) and it’s definitely conditioned my driving to completely avoid hard braking, speeding, etc. The speeding and accelerating was never an issue for me, but the hard braking thing is really sensitive. I now run at least a couple of red lights daily that I would normally stop at just to avoid getting a hard brake.

I decline it as an option since I drive like a maniac and it would probably cost me more in premiums

I can see that. It is truly a slippery slope, without question.

We drive so little that I have been looking for insurance rates that reflect how much the insurance company is actually exposed. 5 vehicles @ less than 5k miles per year total for all of them. Of course there is also the old people stigmatism this program helps with as well.

Wow, I haven't seen anything like your crotch rocket experience but I do constantly see young girls texting while paying no attention to their driving.

Unfortunately, don’t think there’s any going back from the phone distraction problem. They are just far too embedded in our lives now. There is one is every car because we all have one.

I don't drive like a maniac anymore, but I still drive fast and fairly aggressive. Hell, up here nobody pays any attention to the speed limit anymore, anywhere. Half an hour ago I was doing 75-80 on the interstate in a 60 zone and getting passed. People who actually drive the speed limit are more likely to cause accidents in this environment.

Simple enough. Don’t put the program on your phone.

This seems simultaneously both wise and unwise. :D

The 202 out here is like 12 lanes so you're a hazard just going 5 over

Snowbird season is the most dangerous because they'll do the speed limit while everyone else is doing 80+

The distracted driving is out of control though. People giving 5 car lengths at stoplights so they can scroll their phones

:eek: That is something I hadn't thought of.


In my situation, I actually welcome it. If I was doing a daily commute, probably not so much, but paying higher premiums than I deserve is not worth it. Yesterday was my first drive in 11 days, why should I pay the same as someone driving every day?

Granted, I don't drive anywhere near as much as I used to, but I rarely see cops anymore, and almost never see cops pull people over. I-88 by my house is like a combination between the Indy 500 and Mad Max, and most days, not a trooper in sight. There was a time when I wouldn't dare go more than 10 over on any road up here and cops were a nearly constant presence. Doing 70 in a 55 was like dangling your junk in the face of the gods. Not anymore.

My FIL lives in Buffalo Grove. I used to allow myself 45 minutes to make the drive to his house. Now it routinely takes me half an hour. I'm not complaining, but it never stops being odd.

Ive had no tickets for 20+ years and 1 wreck that wasn't my fault. They can give me the benefit of the doubt and cram their spy app up their asses.

Anything that tracks your driving to save you money is just as capable of using the “tracking” to raise your rates. No thank you.

Same here in KC, no Police presence on the roads.

So naturally, people drive like they want.

I see people speed/roll through stop signs daily.

My grandson down in the Ft. Worth area received a bunch of tickets issued as a result of cameras.

They don't have them up in Chicagoland yet?

I had this on my work vehicle for several years. When it started everyone was getting major number of violations. The safety department than tweaked the sensitive of settings for braking, speeding etc... And wow we all became perfect drivers. Likewise, the insurance company can tweak the results to however they want.

In my younger days I used to average a speeding ticket a year. I've probably gotten a couple of dozen of them. It's been about 10 years now since I've gotten one (knock on wood) and I drive much faster now than I did then.

I don't think so. I'll occasionally see signs saying that the speed limit is photo enforced, but I've never gotten a camera speeding ticket. I have gotten nailed a couple of times making right turns at stoplights in Aurora. That's it.

I hate Aurora. It's the stinking asshole/Chicago wannabe of the western suburbs.

Ive had 2, both when I was a teen. One for doing a burn out and one for going 77 in a 55mph zone.

You just mind your own business. You're a driving hazard, grandpa!

Darwin will clock in.....

A: If my insurance company was monitoring my driving habits I'd probably be uninsurable or at least very high risk.
B: Letting an Ins. Co. monitor you can and probably will come back to bite you in the ass sooner or later.

I have enough unnecessary surveillance in this country. Hard pass

When i was looking into teslas, the insurance is sky high. Tesla will insure you, but you have to allow them to monitor your driving and you get a score each month and your rates can adjust accordingly.

So no, hell no, to that.

Insurance is already a big enough scam as it is.

Just another way for them to expand profits.

There was a time when I'd drive home to Missouri every other weekend. I was averaging about 2,500+ miles a month. The bulk of my tickets have been 70 in a 55 out in the middle of bumble**** Illinois.

I've gotten several in Wisconsin, too. If you have Illinois plates on your car, cops up there view you as a twinkie on wheels. After the last one I simply quit going there.

I've got Optimus Tracking on all work vehicles and trailers(6).

If someone touches a trailer, I'm notified. If my employees drive 5mph over the speed limit, I'm notified. If they break hard, I'm notified. If they have a moist fart, I'm notified.

Also has a geofencing function that I used to clock them in for work.

Wonderful tool, and it's connected to the vehicle, not the phone. Makes mileage logging simple for the Uncle Sam.

Maybe you shouldn't do that lol

ROFL That is what I am hoping it will disprove, but we shall see. Our insurance company is exposed to a potential accident less than 50% of the average annual mileage.

So far it has me graded as an excellent driver. I did find it humorous that one day it got me for hard acceleration in the Prius on eco mode. It also got me for hard braking when avoiding hitting a deer.

But in 84 days and 1803 miles (a trip to Texas) I have only had 4 events.

I can see the benefit if there were ever an accident proving who was at fault possibly.

I use the one through State Farm. Saves me about $100 bucks a month.

Same lolz

I once got a ticket for running a stoplight in Chicago. Some lunatic asshole in a Mustang was riding up my ass and there was nowhere to pull over to avoid him. If I hadn't run the stoplight he would have hit me, and it would not have been a love tap. A cop was right there and saw everything. The mustang guy brakes, fishtails through the intersection and peels off the other way. So what does the cop do? Pull ME over and bust me for the light. The rotten **** saw everything that happened. I guess it was low hanging fruit day for the Doughnut Brigade.

I was so pissed that I actually went to court to contest it. I explained to the judge what happened. His exact words - "Avoiding an accident, eh? SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR FINE! NEXT!"

4321

If this type of stuff brings down your rating, they should have a way for the customer to dispute it as being legit and necessary.

:clap: Our new one is with Travelers and I got full coverage on all vehicles for less than liability only with Allstate.

No way I'm hooking that up to my Elco.

No fun in that.

Dash

Cam

Ya, the more you post, the more obvious you are the common denomination in these events

I agree and have all four events documented. Hopefully when renewal time comes we can discuss it.

I have been racking my brain trying to come up with some excuse for hammering the Challenger yesterday until I grinned. I did let off at 60, the speed limit though. o:-)

Wouldn't have done any good in that situation since all the action was behind me.

Yes, I can say that every ticket I've ever received has involved me. :spock:

I installed Farmers app on my phone. Supposedly, there's a chance at a reward each month. It requires power saver to be off or the phone puts it to sleep. Simple solution is to not take the phone with you when you are blowing the cobwebs out of your car.

I'm old and only drive 5mph over the speed limit so I get passed everywhere I go.

Can someone explain to me the need to drive 90 in a 70?

Well sometimes that is necessary! 😊

I used to fly up and down 290 in Chicago as the wasn't enough shoulder space for a cop to safely pull anyone over and if they tried it would cause gridlock so they didn't even bother

Maybe they need to adjust their monitoring system so I’m not punished for properly stopping the vehicle at an intersection without slamming my brakes on. Btw, this only seems to happen when I work in other states. In Florida the lights seem to stay yellow much longer than other places up north.

We've got shit to do!

I have had this feature for years. I'm not an outrageous driver as it is, so it works.

Despite apps and discounts it still seems that one of every two cars I pass the driver is full on looking down at their phone.

In New York state it has been illegal for a long time to be on your phone period (even to talk). You'll lose your license if you're caught enough. I think every state needs these laws. Phone use while driving has gotten out of control and it only gets worse as older drivers who wouldn't be using their phones stop driving and young people who would use it start.

I signed up for something similar about 5-6 years ago on the suggestion of my insurance agent. Received a little dongle thing we plugged into the OBD port. It would beep at you for any of the offenses mentioned above. My wife ripped hers out of the port within a week and said she'd divorce me if I ever tried to make her have one again to supposedly save a few dollars. And honestly, I didn't really care for it either after thinking it through.

They make front/rear facing cameras. Don't even have to run power, just charge it every time you are done for the day.

If I drove in the city often it would be a no-brainer. Too much bullshit and liability everywhere.

Avoid like the plague.

A dashcam you can control is your best friend. Even an honest cop will tell you "don't talk to the cops" and your just hanging your ass out there to interpret arbitrary data for any swinging dick to use how they want.

Just wait until your health or life insurance rates go up because you slow-rolled a stop sign or went 5 mph over.

That also happened nearly 30 years ago, so I don't think car cameras were a thing back then. I haven't lived in Chicago since 2001 and haven't worked there since 2020. I now avoid it like the plague.

And I drive so little now that it hardly seems worth the expense, although I guess one bad day could change that in a hurry.

Regardless of this shitty app you have, you should never be making a conscious decision to drive through a red light. Don't put the lives of others in danger because of a dumb app.

God help us if we ever drove together Fraz. Our road rage would probably melt the dash.

There are varying degrees of running a red light. Nobody is advocating barreling through one after traffic has started moving the other way. But it is much safer to barely run it than lock up your brakes and get blasted by somebody behind you.

God, when I was a kid it was bad. I was far more dangerous driving angry than drunk. When I drove drunk, I was extra careful. :D

Yeah no company spends money to save their customers money. This is all so they can adjust their rates (rate hikes) with cause.

And I'm sure they are sharing that data with other companies so if you change, that bad driving follows you.

As far as I can tell, they can arbitrarily raise rates whenever they want, for any reason or no reason at all.

I could not agree more and thought it was a law everywhere.

I don't see older driversdoing it, mainly young girls who have not experienced the bad things that can happen with inattentive driving.

No frigging way I would want that shit. Too many people being spied on as is.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I did the non-phone one too, and it beeps when I break too hard.

My rating ended up being a 5/5 safe driver and after a few months my rate dropped about 25%

Not true, we have to file rates with the state for approval as Actuaries. And they can object. These programs are actually used to collect data for rating all drivers not just those using them.

Sounds similar to utility companies having to "seek approval" to raise their rates. Sure they have to get approval, but doing so is merely a formality since they are rarely if ever denied.

I had one of those things a long time ago. I was on my dad’s insurance so it had to have been more than a decade ago.

I am a safe driver as is so I had it for a while and it only beeped once. Caught me in a hard brake in one of those situations where I didn’t know if I should risk the red or slam the brakes.

I remember I texted my dad like “Oh, man, this thing just beeped on me” feeling terrible like our rates were going to skyrocket and he’s like “Don’t worry about it. Mine’s gone off like 10 times already” lol

My dad is a shit driver

Don't worry, I'm sure they would never use that data collected to refuse to pay an accident claim because you were doing 1-2 mph over and leave you in bankruptcy holding the bag. Those SOB's know too much about us already. ****ing insurance is backwards anyway, they're betting you won't be in a wreck and you are betting you will.

I used to have snapshot. And I always had to worry about having it on, and getting the alerts. I eventually just went to the hell with it and turn it off and stopped using it.

I don't know if I am a perfect driver but I'm not a tense or upset driver. Most people I ride with have so much rage. Everything gets them upset. I don't know if that is because I use autopilot liberally but I just click it on and not worry about if I have a slow driver in front of me. Just about the only thing that annoys me is if I'm in the right lane and cars are coming on the on ramp I sigh because I have to turn the autopilot off and move over.

I'm kind of surprised that google isn't selling it directly without our knowledge since I figure they get it from our phones.

The car manufacturers are already doing it.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gm-sell...texas-lawsuit/

Just another poor person penalty brought to you by the encroaching dystopia. Think any rich person with a high performance tree wrapping vehicle has any need for this product?

Have one with my insurance it lowered my premium a bit after using it but nothing crazy.

I do not drive crazy and mostly drive to an from work most everything else is walkable or a short distance.

It gives you a scorecard of how you are driving overall and has different catagories.

My only problem with it is the reason I simply have a "good" not "great" score is it says I take turns and corners too fast. In reality I park in a parking garage adjacent to my home and to get on the level I park at your go in circles to ascend up. The program thinks I am taking these crazy endless turns everyday and docks me. LMAO

Any type of "mandatory" tracking I would be against. At that point, its not an insurance savings; its lack of freedom IMO.

Believe me, I thought long and hard about that. However, I felt it worth the gamble to get lower rates due to my extremely low exposure they have to pay for an accident I may be involved in. Like I said earlier, if I was having to commute everyday, it would be a hard pass.
My total score so far is just barely off pegging the needle of excellent, their best rating.

LMFAO, no.

So what do you suggest to curtail these irresponsible idiots using their phone while aiming a 3 to 4 thousand pound object at you and your loved ones?

I personally think phones should be automatically disabled once the car movement is detected. Phones should be automatic where only the GPS or map feature works during the car movement.

The cost of freedom, we all have to die from something

So you are ok with people on their phones while driving? If so, quit driving and stick to the weekly football schedule posting. You are part of the problem.

Of course not, but mandatory monitoring people while in their own personal property is silly

Did you wear a mask, Hemi?

You can't punish everybody for the actions of idiots. **** I hate that.

I'm all for harsh punishment for these clowns. Suspend their licenses. Fine the shit out of them. Send their insurance premiums through the roof. If texting is the cause of an accident, especially one that results in death, treat it like a DUI. But don't put some mandatory gestapo bullshit on my car to punish me for it.

Wanna drag race me at the George Brett Statue?