The only issue with your scenarios is that nobody will ever get in trouble for killing a pedestrian.

That’s a disingenuous hot take. There’s a lot of discussion to be had about balancing Justice and societal/personal costs but you’ve gone and skipped past all of that.

I definitely listened in a legal podcast that somehow juries award lower sentences to road accident deaths as compared to others. Seems strange.

And you’re using a throw away to make unsubstantiated claims without reference. You’ve given no reasons to take your comments as made in good faith.

I just use the term throwaway instead of JohnDoe. A quick search:

https://abcnews.go[.]com/US/hit-run-drivers-kill-people-jail...

If I find the legal podcast link then I will link it here.

Roflmao... Okay, I've only been here a wee bit but even I recognized the username despite having memory issues (ironically here, caused by being hit no less than 5 times as a pedestrian and cyclist)....

Not at all. I've read multiple stories about how pedestrian deaths, even when warranted, rarely result in prosecution. Freakonomics even did an ep called "how to get away with murder" which was all about the statistics of pedestrian deaths.

GP had a VERY good hot take.

I don't see this has a hot take. A couple weeks ago a car intentionally rammed into me from behind.

I called 911 and the police took 30 minutes to arrive on the scene. The officer talked to me for about 3 minutes and then threw up their hands and said they wouldn't do anything because I didn't have a plate number and couldn't identify the driver.

The police didn't even want to bother trying to get footage from nearby cameras when I called back and noted the location of several nearby security cameras that might have picked up the vehicle.

By some miracle, I wasn't seriously injured.

> The police didn't even want to bother trying to get footage from nearby cameras when I called back and noted the location of several nearby security cameras that might have picked up the vehicle.

If it's any consolation, this is, IME, normal. Unless they stumble on a crime in progress, the cops won't do anything at all to actively attempt to catch the culprit, even when you have things like video of the car with license plates legible and it's the same car involved in a string of crimes. Maybe it's different for murder or something, but with other crimes they're basically useless, and that long predates the "defund" movement and all that.

Even for murders, this is the case. The US significantly underperforms other developed countries in the "clearance" rate for murder cases, i.e. the number of murder cases resulting in at least one arrest. In 2020 the clearance rate reached a record low of slightly less than 50% nationally, and much worse in some cities.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/29/1172775448/people-murder-unso...

Not a fan of the police from either a performance or ethics standpoint, but it's harder to make a case in the USA. There are a ton of cases where there's no arrest, despite some evidence.

My home was straight up robbed while I slept three years ago. The convenience store on the corner has cameras facing our property that the suspects walked directly beneath. Despite having been told this, the "detectives" never followed up to see if they could get the footage.

I get it, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing. And around here, a combination of defund the police and other factors have reduced the size of the police force.

Patrols are down 40% since 2020. Hit and runs and other traffic incidents are up. None of the alternate solutions to law enforcement intervention have been implemented so we're just stuck with crime increases. Like a lot of places, we're dealing with an epidemic of people stealing cars for the lulz or using the cars to commit more serious crimes.

I know there are plans to fix some of these issues and I hope our local government can stop arguing about how to do it and start getting stuff done.

100% of cases I'm aware of the police acting like someone's being ridiculous for thinking they'd bother to even run some plates captured in a video of a crime predate "defund", which I'm actually tepidly in favor of, since I'm pretty sure we could come up with programs to issue traffic tickets and hassle the homeless for a lot less than what we pay for the police. I've never once known them to lift a finger in the case of an actual crime, regardless of how much evidence you can hand them on a platter.

And I'm not in one of those supposedly-hellhole liberal cities that people claim have legalized all crime or whatever. Direct and second-hand experience with this stuff dates back to the 80s, for me. Zero times have I known the cops to help when a crime's been committed, beyond issuing a report for insurance (and sometimes charging money for that "service") and possibly snooping around to see if they can charge the person reporting the crime with something (hey, they're already right there, so that's a much easier arrest to make!)

More and more people have dashcams now for this reason. Of course those can be used against you as well.

Honestly if there's no injury, the police aren't going to care too much about damage to your car. They figure you're insured, so you'll be taken care of.

In most cities they have bigger fish to fry and a car accident with no injuries is just not that important. I don't think they're entirely wrong.

I had a situation a few years ago driving down a highway at night when all of a sudden I noticed a weird "thing" in the sky in front of me. It got closer and I swerved, but not enough to avoid it hitting the side of my car, taking off the side mirror and gouging up the front half of the drivers' side. Then I realized it was the plastic bed liner of the pickup truck in front of me that became unattached at highway speeds and flew into the air like a kite. My car was still operable, and I had a (poor quality, especially at night, but operable) dash cam, and the truck ahead of me didn't stop, so I sped closer to close the distance to the truck and for assurance, read out the license plate number aloud so the dash cam's microphone could pick it up before pulling over.

Contacted the police, took them about an hour to respond, and the officer gave me his email so I could send him the video. It was hard to make out but you could definitely see the object leave the truck, and a few seconds later appearing in my view, and me swerving.

Contacted insurance, they arranged the repairs, and I was out the deductible. About a week later I got a call from the police saying they looked up the plate and lo and behold, it wasn't even registered to a white pickup truck, but a blue sedan, so the plate was either stolen or swapped from another vehicle, at which point there really was no recourse.

Long story short, even if you have a dash cam, sometimes you're SOL. I _did_ use that as an excuse to upgrade my dash cam to one with better quality and night vision, but yeah, shit happens, and if nobody got hurt sometimes you gotta just accept it.

The police in your area doesn't do anything about swapped or stolen plates? It's odd since they seem to be the group that would care most about the accuracy of plates matching the car.

Maybe they do, or did in this case, but I wouldn't expect them to keep me informed on what happened.

I don't know what you expected the cam to do, lol. It seems your insurance paid out? If so, how does getting a good picture help at all? The guys a deadbeat with no insurance either way (assuming the apposing driver can be held responsible for damages, not the case in all states).

Assuming you have fault based accidents and can sue for the full cost, again the guys a deadbeat. I don't think this is the money saving idea that it seems. I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish, honestly.

I don't know what you expect this comment to do, lol.

> Long story short, even if you have a dash cam, sometimes you're SOL

Quite simple: Explain how you would have benefited at all, or why you were SOL. It sounds like the outcome could not have been improved... I guess maybe you think that there's a better chance of the person getting caught.

Are you just sad they weren't able to put someone in a cage, even though there's no financial impact on you whatsoever.

> More and more people have dashcams now for this reason. Of course those can be used against you as well.

Most dashcams can track speed too. When I was shopping for a dashcam, many of the reviews/comments said that the first thing they do when configuring their new dashcam is turn off the speed caption (sure it can still be calculated from the visuals if needed, but that's a lot more work). Last thing you want when you're using dashcam video to show someone else was at fault in an accident is their insurer to say that you were 2mph over the speed limit and therefore partially liable.

Deliberately running someone over is not a car accident.

Stepdaughter was just in an accident at an intersection. Officer, when they did show up: "Did you have a green light?" "I believe so." "Okay." Walks over to the other driver, then walks back to her with a citation in hand. "He says he definitely had a green light, so you're being cited for failure to obey a traffic control device."

The conversations with both parties amounted to less than 30 seconds, each.

> Of course the data collected is going to say that as the insurance companies aren't in business to charge people LESS money.

Isn't that what they did in paragraph 1?

My reading is the lower initial price is a incentive to allow the company to collect data. The data can then be used as evidence of poor driving, which then allows the company to raise prices. Although I've never used such a tracker, my understanding is they use proxy metrics for safety (accelerometer thresholds vs. accident record) that can facilitate this.

If your theory is that they can raise prices arbitrarily for profit, then you have to explain why they have not already done so.

Insurance companies complete on actuarial accuracy. I'd rather bad drivers pay more, and be in incentivized to drive better, than young drivers and all drivers pay more.

> then you have to explain why they have not already done so

That may be easy: there is a lot of competition in the market. If one company raises their rates too high above others, it is very easy to switch. Lots of people switch every few renewals, chasing a cheaper price.

With the individualized data, they can selectively raise their rates and either take more in from those customers, or get them (and just them) to flee. All without having to wait until _after_ an accident.

I know someone who's an actuary, and the reality is much simpler: people who consent to tracking tend to be safer drivers because they aren't afraid of the insurance company seeing their driving habits.

It gives the insurance company a way to identify a lower risk group of drivers so they can charge that group lower prices.

> people who consent to tracking tend to be safer drivers because they aren't afraid of the insurance company seeing their driving habits

Is that true? The handful people I know who have/had these devices are definitely wouldn’t fit that category. And most removed it after a while because their premiums went back up (because of their driving). They just chose it because it offered cheaper rates and they all said the companies promised it would not raise rates above what they were already paying. So it was a “what do I have to lose” decision.

Obviously anecdotes aren’t data. I think it makes sense that the drivers that are egregiously unsafe (and know it) will avoid them. But it would take seeing actual data to make it clear to me that the majority of people who consent are safer drivers.

The problem with this tracking nonsense is that it doesn't change anything. The business model is still the same. Unless the insurance company pays out less claims there won't be any savings.

For the members, probably not. But if the insurance companies can more accurate determine who not to cover, they can see huge savings in payouts. That’s why they already have teams of actuaries determine rates based on the data they do have. They just want more specific data.

That seems to support the point you replied to. You point to a group of people who opted out of monitoring and exhibited risky driving behavior, leaving leaving lower risk people in the monitored group

They all consented, initially. The insurance companies got the data they need.

The people who stay in the plan are the low risk group, obviously there will be some percentage of churn in the first year.

IDK. I've declined the tracking with State Farm, and I drive pretty conservatively. I might speed by 5mph or so but I really try to watch traffic and minimize my need to accelerate/brake as it does result in better fuel economy (and saves wear on the brakes). The MPG on my cars absolutely drops by 2-3 MPG when my kids are driving. I just reject the tracking on principle. There's too much incentive for the companies to monitize this data once they have it, and most of us know that really anonymizing data can be quite difficult.

I'm the same.

But it's not hard to see how nearly 100% of people who drive recklessly would avoid such programs, but less than 100% of good drivers would.

The statistical skew makes sense to me. I doubt that insurance companies are assuming that every driver who doesn't take part in such program are bad drivers, but insurance is purely a game of statistics.

Having worked in the insurance industry, and spent a fair amount of time chatting to the underwriting team about what goes into their models, they do on the whole use this data in a straight forward way - if you drive well, you'll get a lower rate. If you drive badly they're going to charge you for the privilege.

Don't get me wrong, there's definitely a bit of "but we can charge more" baked into the pricing models, but that tends to go in as a completely separate "we can charge more" line item within the internal model. This if nothing else is because in the UK the Financial Conduct Authority have an extensive list of things you can not price on, regardless of whether your models show they're indicative of a greater risk. The FCA don't care if you're charging more than you have to, but they will tear you a new one if you're shown to be breaking the rules.

It's what they insinuated might be possible. You COULD save $X with this shiny new surveillance device! Im sure the executive who proposed this scheme didn't pitch it to the rest of the staff as "Ive found a way we can cut our revenues by 30%".

"I've found a way to reduce payouts with data collected by this device that our payers don't get to directly see except through our filtered interface"

"that if it ever got out we were doing that would turn out to be majorly illegal and also would probably cause us to bleed customers fairly quick!"

"I've found a way to reduce payouts and reducing adjuster staffing, by helping drivers avoid crashes"

I’ve got the phone driving app from Allstate that monitors my driving via an iPhone app. I’ve seen my insurance go down as a result.

"likelihood" is only if you are more likely to be a perpetrator than a victim.

Your insurance company pays more if you are at fault, so they'd prefer to prove you innocent.

Or they throw you under the bus. To be liable for all damages. Because they find reason to do so with exclusions they have on policy.

I believe any box or anything that monitors car will be used by insurance company to simply not pay up.

There are very few exclusions for auto insurance. Unless you're using your car for a business without telling them or committing fraud, you're almost guaranteed to be covered. The whole point of car insurance is to insure your negligence.

This makes sense for high-stakes cases that will definitely go to court. Otherwise it is cheaper for both companies to settle out of court and say both drivers are at fault and will be each paying their deductibles, and companies split the repair bill.

> as the insurance companies aren't in business to charge people LESS money.

But the law is, auto insurance companies can only make money on scale. If they charge premiums that are out of line for the risk being covered they have to refund them. This happened when people drove significantly less during covid.

I don't know what specific program he's talking about but some of these optional programs only save you money. That's part of the sales pitch for getting people to use them. If you're afraid it'll charge you more, you wouldn't sign up. If you can demonstrate that you are a safer driver to their model, they can save you money. Whether you value that money more than your privacy is ultimately up to you.

Some state they may charge you more, however. I just looked up a few:

State Farm: "Drive Safe & Save is always a discount and does not surcharge your policy. The Drive Safe & Save discount is based on your annual mileage and basic driving characteristics."

Nationwide: "Can SmartRide increase my premium? No. This is a discount program. SmartRide measures driving behavior to reward you with a discount, not raise your rates."

Allstate: "Customers will receive a policy discount for participating in Drivewise and those who sign up and avoid risky behaviors can save on their premium. If customers stay active in Drivewise (active participation means at least one driver takes 50 trips or drives prior to renewal processing), their participation discount will not decline, but overall premium savings from Drivewise will depend on the customer's driving behaviors. Drivers who have riskier driving behaviors are expected to see a higher price from participating in Drivewise."

GEICO: "DriveEasy is a new program that promotes safe driving by providing both GEICO and the customer valuable information about individual driving patterns. This is designed to help you become a safer driver. Most customers will be able to save based on their safe driving habits, however riskier drivers may see a higher rate – depending on the state you live in."

All new cars have a blackbox that records what happened before a crash. So it would just stop the constant monitoring point.

Is there a known date before which this wasn’t the case?

If you want to buy a car that doesn’t have such a device, do you need a 2010? A 2019? Country dependent?

I honestly have no idea the exacts. But I know some cars have it even since 2003.

90s cars are the sweet spot where electronic fuel injection and emissions controls were mature enough to be reliable and having minimal complexity. It's mostly downhill from there.

You're more likely to be maimed or killed in a crash though

https://jalopnik.com/let-s-watch-cars-from-the-90s-crash-184...

I'm less likely to get into one in the first place, because I can actually see out of the damn car.

I was fooled into using one from Progressive once. For the record I'm an extremely cautious driver of a 99 horsepower Prius C, exactly the type an insurance company should love to insure. Any breaking of even moderate intensity causes the box to beep and your "safe driving score" goes down. Yellow light, run it or your insurance goes up. Someone cuts you off and you avoid an accident, your insurance goes up.

The final straw for me after a few months was another driver running a stop sign and feeling my brain waste milliseconds deciding if I should hit the brakes as hard as I should or juuuust hard enough to avoid hitting them in hopes I don't get a beep. I did the latter and it beeped anyway so I ripped it off the ODBII port and threw it on the floor. I changed insurance companies the moment I got home from work.

My final score was really poor and I was pissed since I'm the slowest and safest driver I know.

That's my understanding, also--they're hypersensitive to the realities of the road. They really need to refine their models a bit rather than simply rewarding what they consider "safe" behavior.

Yes, aggressive driving is a bad thing--but it's not something easily detected by a sensor.

Trying to think of all the shitty driving I could do without triggering this device...

I could easily fly up the shoulder at 40mph in a 60 zone bypassing all the stopped traffic.

Could drive down the sidewalk at a 20mph pace.

I can still weave though traffic as long as I don't go too far over the speed limit (assuming this device tracks location and speed).

I can still tailgate the fuck out of anybody.

I can still use my phone while driving.

I can be completely wasted and probably not set the thing off.

But don't you dare hit your brakes too hard!!!

Practice braking at a stop sign with no one around? Bad driver!

While all those incidents you described weren't your fault, surely you have to agree that there's a correlation between driving in situations like that and being more likely to get in an accident? It isn't just about your driving performance, if you're driving in places or intersections where people tend to cut you off or run red lights - or hell, just places with lots of traffic and intersections in general - that's hugely predictive of the chance you'll get in an accident relative to someone that drives a less travelled route.

It's a failure of the industry that they tend to market this monitoring as all about the driver. It's really not, it's just conditional probability.

I don't disagree, but they already know where I live and how far my commute to work is (was, yay WFH) as those are standard questions I've answered with every company I've used.

> It isn't just about your driving performance, if you're driving in places or intersections

To underline this, I had an enlightening moment with my auto insurance company years ago. I worked a handful of miles from where I lived, but the only way to get between the two was a freeway that is infamous for not only being highly congested (my average commute was a 45 minute drive each way), but for the numerous accidents that happened on it.

I moved much closer to my work, and when I updated my insurance policy with my new address, my premium was cut to nearly 1/3rd what it was before.

If it's not about the drivers performance perhaps the box shouldn't consistently beep at them to let them know about how they are driving, to the point of distraction.

> This whole thing seems like a way to possibly save a trivial amount of money in exchange for an increased likelihood of Really Bad Things happening to you.

Historically, as a XXI century society, we tend to adopt solutions like this (AirBnB, Uber, “you are the product” platforms, blindly accepting ToS, etc).

I don’t mean to be a nihilist, I just wanted to point out that this nothing new and that this is a trend. Hopefully there will be a way to balance this like the other examples, even if a little.

>>> save a trivial amount of money in exchange for an increased likelihood of Really Bad Things happening to you

Nowadays, everything they come up with is like this.