Comment by peter303
4 days ago
NYTimes article a few years ago on how car insurance companies were using such data. Tracking sudden stoos, driving at night, driving faster than 80 mph, etc.
4 days ago
NYTimes article a few years ago on how car insurance companies were using such data. Tracking sudden stoos, driving at night, driving faster than 80 mph, etc.
As an aside…
I wonder why “80 mph” was picked as an arbitrary value. In rural areas of Utah we have 80 mph posted limits and prima facie speed laws. A lot of Utah drivers regularly exceed 80 MPH and I’d argue they do so legally. It’s just a weird number for them to pick.
They may be looking at a correlation between speed and claims rather than whether or not the speed is legal. Accidents at 80 mph will tend to be more severe, and possibly also more frequent.
Note that they are also looking at night driving, which as far as I know is legal everywhere, but someone who spends a higher percentage of their time driving at night probably is a bigger risk for the insurance company than a similar person who doesn't drive as much at night.
I'd surmise it's because several states (CA comes to the top of mind) set speeds in excess of 80 as a potential felony enhancement.
iirc in CA it's 20mph over the speed limit, or speeds over 80.
The insurance companies probably want to know who to raise rates on.
Which is crazy because when I do 80 in Mostly PA and NJ I am getting passed constantly.
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It's not arbitrary. In Virginia that's a guaranteed reckless driving charge.
Texas: we set the speed limit at 85.
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Not anymore. It got moved to 85 because speed limit on interstates moved to 70.
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It's not arbitrary, there are limits of physics to how fast you can slow down on rubber wheels no matter how good your brakes are. The stopping distance starts to grow dramatically around these speeds.
Even it it's legal, it's probably less safe. Insurance companies care about your likelihood of being in an accident that they will have to pay for, not strictly whether your driving is legal.
In jurisdictions where 65MPH is the highway speed limit, 80MPH is usually the "reckless driving" threshold. And in Virginia, reckless driving is a felony misdemeanor.
people that drive on those high speed roads are more likely to be involved in more dangerous/harmful collisions?
legally and unlikely-to-make-expensive-consequences are separate items that insurance exists to differentiate
why shouldnt people driving on such dangerous roads have to pay higher insurance rates?
Exactly. Exchanging private and personal user data without consent and without users being aware of it, for their profits.
It’s important to understand that in the USA, data is owned by the collector (eg. The app or SaaS who generated it), not the person who is described by it.
Until this legal regime changes, we will constantly be playing whack-a-mole with laws like this.
That sounds like something Europeans would do, so it's anti american.
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The economy is not 0 sum. Someone else profiting doesn't hurt you.
Seems you missed that part that DOES hurt us:
> Exchanging private and personal user data without consent and without users being aware of it
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You’re right and wrong: today’s economy is often negative sum from total utility perspective. It hurts society and the person but it helps Mark Suckerberg and Scam Altman and the private equity firms.
It’s positive sum from a wealth-weighted utility calculation though. And that’s why it happens.
Aren't those collected consensually (and pretty explicitly) as part of insurance programs?
Default opt in by most new cars with cellular connections
I wonder what default opt in would be called in other consent contexts..
So, opt out?