Wreckless drivers should pay less. Wreckful drivers should pay more...

A big problem here is lack of consent. It's one thing to add an insurance surveilance device to your vehicle, it's another for it to be built in and not specifically agreed to.

Another big problem is lack of transparency: we don't always know what they're tracking.

Another big problem is (most likely) lack of understanding of the scene. You can't tell from one car's sensors if the driving was appropriate, IMHO. Maybe someone with a lot of hard braking should drive differently, but if they haven't had any collissions and have a long history, it smells of 'pre-crime' to charge them more for something they didn't do.

> Another big problem is lack of transparency: we don't always know what they're tracking.

And thats where it gets messy and infringes on personal freedoms: if you're required to purchase a risk-adjusted product but you don't know what risk factors you're being judged on, how do you know you're not being discriminated against unfairly? How do you know there's no mistakes? How do you know the person you sold your car to isn't accidentally affecting your rates because the insurance company's data broker never got the transfer-of-sale? How do you know the insurance companies aren't colluding and deciding you're on the wrong side of a Red Line they drew on some map?

With credit scores, there's been a long fight to get a half-assed kinda-free basically-complete credit report so you could at least see what you're being judged on. Where's the "credit report" my insurance company is making choices on so I can at least try to correct inaccuracies?

I get insurance companies make decisions based on information, and better information is just market efficiencies at work. It gets real messy real quick when the information affects something you're often required to purchase and you have no recourse.

Go ahead, get the market efficiencies from better information, but if you're being forced to participate, the government forcing your participation should also force the other side to present the information that judges you.

> it smells of 'pre-crime' to charge them more for something they didn't do

Ignoring the fact that reckless driving is an actual crime and thing they did, not "something they didn't do", it is also probabilistically the thing that leads to collision damages. Insurance companies are probability companies first and foremost. It absolutely makes sense for them to charge more to cover behavior that is more likely to lead to payout.

A track record of completely avoidable near misses should still be penalized I think. Reckless wreckless driving is still a crime, even if it's hard or rare to have enforcement.

I'm not a fan of the surveillance without consent, but if this were opt-in I would be ok with reckless drivers being charged more for the wake of accidents they may leave in their path.

> Maybe someone with a lot of hard braking should drive differently, but if they haven't had any collisions and have a long history, it smells of 'pre-crime' to charge them more for something they didn't do.

I agree that it smells terrible.

But insurance is full of this kind of thing -- it's about predicting possible outcomes, identifying the random component that goes into it, and charging based on likelihood.

Consider the example of life insurance companies charging smokers more, even if they don't have emphysema or lung cancer yet. Maybe they should quit smoking but we understand the connection between risk factors and outcomes well enough that it's not unreasonable to charge more.

(Not exactly comparable, of course: it's hard to argue "well, I've smoked for 30 years and so far so good!" in the same way as "I brake hard a lot but I've been doing it for 30 years without an accident so clearly it's not a problem".)

> it IS fair for reckless drivers to pay more

It totally is. The problem is that what constitutes reckless driving is a black box established and controlled by the very same entity that charges you for that.

I read a comment on HN some time ago about using sudden deceleration to identify reckless driving, and how that mistakenly flagged drivers for avoiding other people's reckless behavior.

Having to drive defensively to avoid other people’s recklessness is a signal that you’re operating your vehicle in a higher risk traffic environment. Insurance already differs by geography, that sounds like more accurate pricing of risk. Bad drivers raise everyone’s collective insurance costs.

> what constitutes reckless driving is a black box established and controlled by the very same entity that charges you for that

Only if you buy GM’s insurance. Otherwise, it’s just tattling on you to a third party.

OP is correct. This is a stupid angle to attack non-consensual monitoring from that undermines the article’s credibility.

> the sector is getting automated by sloppy AI

What is a reckless driver? Before you answer that, consider that you only have access to the vehicle sensors to make that determination. Can you? “Oh, they routinely exceed the speed limit.” The speed limit, which is set by a small town on the way to a tourist destination intended to ensnare people from outside the state. “They corner too quickly.” What is too quickly? At minimum, if they and the vehicle survived the maneuver, it’s within the operating envelope of the vehicle. “Fast acceleration.” There’s an on-ramp near my house that is, by universal agreement of the townspeople, too short (and on a curve too!). You must accelerate like you’re getting launched off an aircraft carrier in order to safely merge.

Without context, it’s impossible for a “sloppy AI” to make judgements based on telemetry alone about the quality of the driver.

Come on, it would be pretty simple to do with even pretty conservative metrics: abrupt lane changes without indicating, frequent rapid acceleration and deceleration and swerving, if the car has cameras, then proximity to other vehicles or pedestrians while driving at speed, i.e. tailgating etc., if the car has gps, then failing to stop at intersections with stop signs, getting from A to B in a time that could only have been achieved with excessive speeding...

Self driving cars are simple too

So driving around a private race track is reckless driving (something that should the person have a wreck doing, their insurance would not cover)?

This is a question of informed consent and due process. Of course we should do everything we can to prevent [bad thing] but within a system of constraints (e.g. laws, rights, etc.). Why don’t manufacturers put a big sticker on the window of their cars saying that all your driving information would be sold to auto insurers, potentially resulting in higher insurance premiums? Because they would sell less cars (or people would buy cars that don’t do this) - so instead they do it surreptitiously.

So at the end of the of the day you just have to ask yourself if you an “ends justify the means” type of person…

Does anyone's insurance go down? If not, it's just an excuse by insurance companies to make more money.

Do average prices to fix cars go down? Have people generally been driving cheaper or more expensive cars over time? Why would we expect insurance to go down on things more expensive to insure?

Taking a quick peek, while insurance rates have been going up for while most insurance companies' margins are pretty similar to their historical margins.

Building on top of this, many states limit how much increases can be, which makes it difficult for insurers to respond to quickly changes market forces like we saw in COVID.

Labor + Parts became so much more expensive but coverage costs were unable to be increased.

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/07/1236504265/auto-insurance-cos...

Sounds like the car insurance companies should have taken out policies for sudden events beyond their control.

Other types of insurance companies do so; For example, State Farm might take out a policy to backstop their cash reserves where the terms are if they exceed over $100million in claims in a 2 week period of time.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the question. It's not about the gradual increase of rates over time generally, it's about relative rates due to behavior tracking.

If reckless driving can increase insurance premiums relative to others while ideal driving has no effect on your relative premium, it's just a naked money grab. All downside means drivers should be against it.

> Does anyone's insurance go down?

This was the question. A huge chunk of a lot of people's insurance isn't the insurance to fix your car, it is to fix the other guy's car. If the average cost to fix the other guy's car keeps going up, your insurance will end up going up given a fixed risk level.

My Tesla insurance has gone down ~$30/mo showing that I've been a 'careful' driver or whatever. Perhaps they were overcharging when I first signed up, but I'm not complaining too much.

That said, the anxiety of always being watched when I'm driving and knowing that I'm directly impacting my wallet has made me consider just eating the extra $100 my old insurance provider wanted just to have the peace of mind that I can drive without feeling like taking that turn too fast just cost me $5

When I moved close enough to work that I didn't drive there anymore and reported that to my car insurance company, my premium was cut in half. So yes, it does happen.

But I wasn't driving a car that was spying on me for that. It was just a recalculation based on my self-reporting.

Mine does! The last two renewal cycles my insurance bill has dropped by ~3%.

It's not much but it's something. I suspect it has to do with my car getting older and my comprehensive being worth less.

> Does anyone's insurance go down?

Doesn’t your insurance go down over time? Mine does, and I expect it to continue so long as I avoid tickets or damage.

Mine has gone up $200 in the last year. No tickets, no accidents, we both have clean driving records.

The insurance company says that costs have gone up in the area generally.

My behavior is apparently superseded by how much my insurance company is paying out for other people.

> costs have gone up in the area generally

This is valid. Local inflation varies.

> how much my insurance company is paying out for other people

Might be time to explore other insurers with stricter requirements for who they’ll accept.

This has a VERY simple fix - get a new insurance company. Most companies slowly raise rates on customers who don't shop around. I'd actually recommend most people get at least one insurance quote at least every other year.

Every time my rates go up by a non-trivial amount I get some quotes from other companies and I'm always able to lower my cost for comparable insurance by at least 20%. I'm paying less for car insurance than I was 10 years ago and I've raised my coverage significantly.

It's really that easy if you don't have any tickets or claims.

This is my problem with this, it's all whip and no carrot.

Yes, my Geico insurance has gone up and down over the last few years in SF to end at $120/mo.

I imagine that in the worst case, drivers can form an insurance co-op.

AAA is technically a co-op. Cheapest option all around when I lived in Cali.

I hope reckless people pay more because of this.

I'm tired of being passed on the right by gigantic SUVs driving 95 mph in heavy traffic.

Maybe because you're in the passing lane and should be in the right lane then you wouldnt have that problem.

"But I'm going the speed limit and screw speeders !" It's not your job or place to enforce speed limits. It's also the law that if someone wants to pass you (and speed) then you get in the right lane.

So kindly MOVE OVER if you are unwilling to go the speed of traffic.

Or I'm on a three-lane highway...

Rules still apply, the middle lane isn't for slow pokes eiher. Get in the far right lane in you're going to be a snail.

I'm not a slow poke driver...

Again if there's traffic behind you that wants to move faster and you're in the middle lane MOVE OVER even on a 3 lane road.

It's really not that hard or that complicated.

If I'm doing 75 in the middle lane along with traffic, and somebody behind me in the middle lane wants to do 95, I'm not obligated to move into the slow vehicle lane.

They can pass on the left, in the passing lane. They are not entitled to pass on the right on the slow vehicle lane.

You're right. This is not hard to comprehend.

I'm certain the parent poster was describing a situation where the reckless driver could have used the passing lane on the left, but chose to pass on the right. Passing on the right is fine when the passing lane is blocked.

The SUV ripping past you at 95 won't get dinged because SUV is a premium segment and manufacturers will move heaven and earth to remove pain points and prevent their customers from going to cheaper cars, even if that means subsidized captive insurance.

No, but you will get dinged for rolling through a stop sign at 1mph because your insurance doesn't have the covert objective of keeping you in a higher price bracket vehicle, so all they need is an excuse. 1mph through a stopsign? STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCUM (and pay us)!

If you're being passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.

Or I'm on a three land highway...

If you're being passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.

I'm being passed by SUVs going 85 mph. My speed has nothing to do with whether or not other people are recklessly and aggressively driving huge, unwieldy death machines.

It is naive to believe that this targets the wealthy drivers of gigantic SUVs. It's really targeting the poor who need car insurance and feel pushed to give up their privacy to afford it.

You should only pay more if you cause actual damages. Even people who drive carefully can cause accidents. This is punishing people before they have caused a problem, and it is wrong.

Try reading the rest of the sentence.

It's only fair if you pay less if not a reckless driver. If insurance companies pocket that money and continue to charge you more then it's a grift.

However, the spying on you part is problematic. You can be flagged as reckless driver (even if you're not) with no recourse or knowledge as of why, it's an algo so go figure. And when insurance companies need more revenue they'll tweak the algo even more.

People shouldn't have their data sold without consent to any third party. In fact, they shouldn't have their data collected by any party involved without consent. If the insurance companies want to offer those tracking devices that change your rates up and down - that's fair game, otherwise they should shove off.

Consent will be laundered through fine print in contracts so long it takes hours or days to read and comprehend every implication.

Perhaps there should be some standard EULAs much like there are standard FOSS licenses.

"Consent" given through fine print isn't actually consent in any meaningful use of the word. The law doesn't agree, and that's a problem.

I don't think a standard EULA really addresses the issue. A big part of the issue is that for consent to be meaningful, you need to be informed clearly and completely exactly what you're being asked to consent to, including exactly how your data will be used and who it will be shared with.

It would be hard to standardize that. I don't think I've ever seen a EULA the actually gave the information needed for informed consent.

The live entertainment industry had an interesting solution: the standard rider. You can put whatever nonsense you want in the contract, but the standard rider spells out what is important to the buyer (and the rider is controlling). It could be that as a condition of agreement to the sales contract, the seller agrees to the buyer’s rider that includes privacy protection and liability for the sale of data.

Seems like the EU is getting pretty close to how it should be: You need to inform the user about the potential data being collected and then get affirmative consent from the user that is not baked into requirements to use the product.

You missed the end of the sentence, and the following sentence: your quote misrepresents what the author was saying.

> GM (and some apologists) will of course proclaim that this is only fair that reckless drivers pay more, but that’s generally not how it works. Pressured for unlimited quarterly returns, insurance companies will use absolutely anything they find in the data to justify rising rates.