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Drive Wise??
Brookwood
Member, Moderator Posts: 13,744 ******
Allstate has been bugging me to get this phone app promising to get a discount on my car insurance. If my understanding is correct, it would mean that every time I get in my car to go somewhere that my driving would be monitored.
I consider myself a very good driver but this intrusion to my privacy seems like a commie plot to me! They can go pound sand!
Anyone here buy into this form of control?
Comments
Pass
I've had the same insurance company for over 50 years. They already know I'm a safe and conscientious driver so no need for monitor widget.
The problems with those widget are well known. They 'get lost' and record that you are speeding because the speed limit on an adjacent road is lower than the main road you're actually on. They give you a check mark for hitting the brakes to avoid a deer in the road. Son's driving monitor runs off his work phone and he got called out by his boss when the program sent an urgent "this guy is doing bad stuff" message----- Son was in his farm pickup stuck in a snow drift and doing some hard forward/reverse action trying to get unstuck. Some of these things can be "edited" but many are set in stone and you get dinged.
My advice; stick with a reputable insurance company and you won't need that monitor widget.
I periodically get a report from my onstar on my driving. There is no way I would let the insurance company monitor me because of the things Mobuck mentioned. Accelerating to safely merge getting on the expressway can ding you, hard braking to avoid an animal or idiot can ding you. I admit I drive like an old man nowadays but my score is always around 80/100. I figure the only way to do any better is to leave the car in the garage. Bob
Well, when my daughter was an agent she brought that up and I said ok for like 30 bucks a month off for 6 months. I can tell you it is a piece of sophisticated electronics. I got a report the first month and it had EVERYTHING about "hard breaking", speeding, sharp turns, quick acceleration, every road I was on ect. ect. They gave me a survey about it, and I told them the HARD braking was me NOT hitting a deer and a person had run a red light ect. So I took it off and sent it back to them. That was just from an insurance company, can you imagine if the suits wanted to know about you? Scary stuff.
We recently switched insurance companies and the new agent asked if we'd like one of those systems in our cars so we could get fractionally cheaper rates. My wife looked at her and said, "Uh, that'd be a hard NO!"
if the suits want this, its because they want to do a mileage tax, rather than a motor fuel tax paid at the pump. so far states that want to impose a miles driven tax has proposed this to replace the motor fuel tax per gallon purchased, its only a matter of time before its done in addition too. the cost of highway maintenance has far exceeded the income of revenue raised at the pump because of 2 things. reduced mileage driven and more efficient vehicles getting more miles per gallon. i figure the people will get both taxes with this political climate.
Yeah, I’d tell them to go pound sand. Only a matter of time before it would be used against you.
my insurance wanted to give me that "feature" also. no thanks just gives their lawyers reasons to not pay you if you get into an accident. your cars computer already records a lot of that info anyway. i remember several years ago the insurance companies were removing the computer from your wrecked vehicle and downloading that info. they were sued and they lost. they claimed they had a right to that info and the plaintiff argued, my car, my computer.
My State Farm agent tried to talk me into the same thing several years ago. I knew how I drove, so I told him I wasn't interested. I haven't been pressured since then.
Joe
I found an insurance company that does not pay for hundreds of stupid TV commercials a day.My rates were half what they were Allstate or State Farm.
The dangled carrot is that it might reduce your rates. The stick is that they'll use it to raise your rates and deny coverage.
Then the goobermint will use it to raise your taxes.
Dano, Haven't you posted numerous times about paying all your bills online? I'd say it doesn't make much sense to require a paper bill (and miss out on a discount) but then when you receive the paper bill you pay it online... Go paperless, save some money and when you get the email bill instead, click on link and schedule payment when due... Collecting a bunch of paper is wasting resources, time and money...IMHO.
New cars have black boxes too so they can replay the last so many seconds of a drive before a crash.
This is why I drive a 1963 Land Rover with 10 moving parts.
Anyone that offered that to me would have a hard time recovering from the mocking that would then ensue.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
None of my cars are new enough to have an OBD2 port to plug one of those in to. Well my truck has an obd port, but it is an old diesel that has almost no live data to pick up on.