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AA Drivesafe - Another Black Box Car Insurance Scheme

 
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Darren
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:09 am    Post subject: AA Drivesafe - Another Black Box Car Insurance Scheme Reply with quote

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Hot on the heels of TomTom's announcement last week, the AA have now unveiled their own Insurance product, firmly targeted at young and newly qualified drivers, which also seeks to bring down the cost of motor insurance.

Called 'Drivesafe', it uses a black box fitted to monitor information on speed, cornering force, braking and road types to calculate a Drivesafe 'score'. This score is reviewed throughout the insurance period with safe driving being rewarded by a reduction in your premium. Driving that is deemed to be unsafe could also result in a premium increase.

The Drivesafe website is vague on the technical details of the system. GPS is one part of the hardware and an anti-theft tracking system is another benefit plus an online dashboard where insured drivers can monitor their driving score. An iPhone app is also coming.

Whilst there are some concerns about the risks of big brother style monitoring, young or newly qualified drivers are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain insurance. Any solution that helps reduce premiums could prove very popular.

www.theaadrivesafe.com/.

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M8TJT
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:22 am    Post subject: Re: AA Drivesafe - Another Black Box Car Insurance Scheme Reply with quote

News Team wrote:
Any solution that helps reduce premiums could prove very popular.
Any solution that would stop them having accidents would be another popular one.
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K13ehr
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 8:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It'd be good to see some actual figures of premiums.

I wonder if they'll start of high and then reduce for good behaviour, or start half way along the normal scale for each individual, and then go up/down according to driving style.

Good idea though, except for the big brother GPS telling where they go, time will tell.
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Major_Route
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 9:55 am    Post subject: Not so fast... Reply with quote

On the face of it sticking a spy in the car for young drivers to be forced (through their pockets) to adjust to good driving habits should be welcomed. As an older driver I am not the one being targeted so it doesn't affect me. But hold on a minute, what of the future? When will be the day when they charge a normal rate for insurance with the spy onboard and then charge a premium if you don't have one on your vehicle? This is just the start targeting the young driver but as systems get cheaper it WILL become the norm. Are you all ready to accept that your travel is tracked?

Has anyone here tried out some of the driving habit apps for your smart phones that assess your driving skills. They are appallingly inaccurate. I hope these systems have been thoroughly tested and are of a better standard. Just as an example. How often has your satnavs speed for the current stretch of road been wrong? You’re going to get marked down for speeding because the system is out of date. How about that safe overtake you just performed? Did you exceed the speed limit briefly? If they mark you down for swerving or braking hard to avoid that child that runs out what good is that? Let alone dodging potholes and the like. There are so many other things that these systems can’t take into account they become almost worthless. Unless there are enough sensors and gizmos that the car would be able to safely drive its self how can it possibly make accurate judgments on driving habits.

These systems should be independently tested to prove their accuracy and worth before this goes too far.
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rkm_hm
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:13 am    Post subject: Re: Not so fast... Reply with quote

Major_Route wrote:
Has anyone here tried out some of the driving habit apps for your smart phones that assess your driving skills. They are appallingly inaccurate. I hope these systems have been thoroughly tested and are of a better standard. Just as an example. How often has your satnavs speed for the current stretch of road been wrong? You’re going to get marked down for speeding because the system is out of date. How about that safe overtake you just performed? Did you exceed the speed limit briefly? If they mark you down for swerving or braking hard to avoid that child that runs out what good is that? Let alone dodging potholes and the like. There are so many other things that these systems can’t take into account they become almost worthless. Unless there are enough sensors and gizmos that the car would be able to safely drive its self how can it possibly make accurate judgments on driving habits.


The point about changing speed limits is a valid one except that, in my experience, limits invariably come DOWN rather than up. So, if the device has an out of date limit, it's more likely to be too HIGH!

I assume that these things don't have any direct connection to the vehicle's electrics/electronics - apart from a power supply - and that they get their data from a GPS and from built-in accelerometers. If so, I can see a nice little niche market for producing sprung and damped mounts - designed to limit the amount of acceleration felt by the device.
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Darren
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:23 am    Post subject: Re: Not so fast... Reply with quote

rkm_hm wrote:
I assume that these things don't have any direct connection to the vehicle's electrics/electronics - apart from a power supply - and that they get their data from a GPS and from built-in accelerometers.

Nope, they use data from the vehicle via the OBDII data system that is common to all vehicles manufactured since 2001. GPS data supplements this but is not core to the speed, G-force, braking, acceleration and other data parameters already captured by the car computer.
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:40 am    Post subject: Re: Not so fast... Reply with quote

Darren wrote:

Nope, they use data from the vehicle via the OBDII data system that is common to all vehicles manufactured since 2001. GPS data supplements this but is not core to the speed, G-force, braking, acceleration and other data parameters already captured by the car computer.


I thought that was illegal to access that data, perhaps in agreeing to have one of these fitted you waive your rights.
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Darren
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's certainly not illegal. If you take your car into the dealer they plug-in and access that data, and, by agreeing to use a service such as this you would be required to agree to having the black box installed plus allowing it to access the OBDII bus data link.
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rkm_hm
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:44 am    Post subject: Re: Not so fast... Reply with quote

Darren wrote:
rkm_hm wrote:
I assume that these things don't have any direct connection to the vehicle's electrics/electronics - apart from a power supply - and that they get their data from a GPS and from built-in accelerometers.

Nope, they use data from the vehicle via the OBDII data system that is common to all vehicles manufactured since 2001. GPS data supplements this but is not core to the speed, G-force, braking, acceleration and other data parameters already captured by the car computer.


I wasn't aware that OBD2 captured cornering G-force. DOES it? If so, how?
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:08 pm    Post subject: Re: Not so fast... Reply with quote

rkm_hm wrote:
I wasn't aware that OBD2 captured cornering G-force. DOES it? If so, how?


I don't think the OBD2 system does in itself, but the blackbox with the GPS stuff in it will more than likely have other magical elements in it that grab this data. However, there's no point in them reinventing the wheel so they use OBD2 data for some stuff as it's already present.

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aj2052
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What actually constitutes safe driving, some third party sitting at a desk analysing the fact that certain traffic conditions warrant perhaps accelerating hard or some idiot pulls out in front of me causing me to brake hard or comparing some ambigious road speed data given on most satnavs or even deciding that cornering in the wet is the safest speed even in the dry, the mind boggles ?
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 10:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

aj2052 wrote:
What actually constitutes safe driving, some third party sitting at a desk analysing the fact that certain traffic conditions warrant perhaps accelerating hard or some idiot pulls out in front of me causing me to brake hard or comparing some ambiguous road speed data given on most satnavs or even deciding that cornering in the wet is the safest speed even in the dry, the mind boggles ?

I think that this could be the thin end of the wedge.

A few years from now some statistician shall "prove" that this has saved x number of lives since introduction and convince government that, as all cars have the technology available now, a further xx lives would be saved if all vehicles were fitted with the system and monitored by satellite.

To list just the obvious:- they would Earn ££millions in fines, Save ££millions in SpeedCamera purchase/installation/maintenance, Save ££millions in less police officers monitoring the roads, Save ££millions in fire officers/paramedics/doctors&nurses tied up with RTA's, Reduce journey times as there would be fewer delays caused by accidents and Improve road planning by highlighting traffic flows and trends.

Apart from the few who dabble in nefarious activities, it's difficult to argue why we shouldn't all sign up for this straight away.

BTW, I'm Anti-BlackBox.
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 10:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah I think you're right with the 'thin edge of the wedge' remark. It's just a way to eventually extract more money from the motorist. What happens in the end, instant fines for speeding no matter what the situation. They won't need speed cameras will they. Goodbye CamerAlert. Hell, they won't need traffic police because we'll all be driving so safe accidents won't happen. Then we can all drive around using our mobiles in our smoking vehicles pilled high with unsecured loads with no one to stop us. Thank heavens for that little black box protecting us all.

When will they learn that technology isn't the answer to everything if it's not ready. I don't believe this is until it can actually drive.

What makes me laugh is if the government put up a camera it's for safety but when the chap errected a dummy camera, which isn't illegal, they said if it caused an accident he would be liable. Doh. Therefore by their own admission the SAFETY camera has the potential to cause accidents.
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