Is Your Driving Being Secretly Scored? The insurance industry, hungry for insights into how people drive, has turned to automakers and smartphone apps like Life360.

LOL I always knew that creepy Life360 shit would come back to bite people in the ass eventually.

Driving behavior analysis, or telematics, as the insurance industry calls it, could be better for consumers, leading to personalized rates that are more fair. Plus, if people have to pay more for their risky driving, they may drive more cautiously, leading to safer roads. But this will happen only if drivers are aware that their behavior is being monitored.

I'm so sick of this shit.

Just like the stop sign cameras, this only increases safety by penalizing and then monetizing minor mistakes that humans make. This is not about safety, it's about maximizing income through technological micromanaging of drivers who have not caused an accident and were not in danger of causing one.

You'd also have to be a damn fool not to realize that all the data they're collecting may not apply to their rate structure today, but in the future that rate structure will change, and suddenly a history of driver data you let them gather about you goes from being unremarkable to indicative of a problem.

The shareholders are demanding a blood sacrifice, so rates suddenly go up for people that have a driver score beneath a certain threshold where previously that threshold was higher.

Or some new bullshit study comes out claiming people that listen to podcasts while driving are infinitesimally more likely to cause an accident than people that listen to music, and whoops, Michael Barbaro has been your constant companion on every morning commute for the last 4 years. That's a pattern of risky behavior.

If only we had lawmakers that kept greedy corporations in check, instead of bickering over bullshit.

Our insurance company offered a rate reduction if we installed a device on the cars to monitor how we drove. It we met whatever metric they set we’d get a discount for “safe driving”.

Hell no. I’m paying full price to not have them looking over my shoulder while driving.

Because you know that the data will be sold, or even used to classify your risk as a driver and potentially raise your rates. There’s nothing altruistic about these companies.

infos & some criticism of the app :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life360
(also some cars have integrated tracking)

The article photo looks like these three women have slowed down to get a good look at me as I struggle to keep my food away from three hungry raccoons in my underwear (me in my underwear, not the raccoons) on my front lawn next to a bouncy castle the raccoons have all but taken over at this point.

Secretly? Doubt it. Some are even loudly proud of doing it in the name of "saving you money". Long as its out in the open, ok. Do they tap into google drive and waze data though?

I just want to be able to corner hard and accelerate hard and do some spirited driving in a safe area without that info getting sold to insurance companies…

"but I don't need privacy, I don't have anything to hide!"

Nope, because I drive an 03 Jetta lol

Edit: I’m also quite selective about the stuff I install on my phone, and nothing has “always on” location data.

My driving is being non-secretly scored, I have an app just for that. Currently it just complains that I have power saving mode on all the time, so I don't know if it's not working or if it is and I just can't see the results anymore. (I'm not turning off power saving mode.)

I'll get the popcorn once this trend reaches motorcycles.

Nah, mine is pretty upfront about it. You can even opt in to get a device that plugs into your car to give them even more data to lower your premium if you're actually a good driver. That shit started when I was still in high school, too. Nobody else remember Flo from Progressive hawking these things?

Gotta admit I’m curious why you think that.

Jokes on them, I drive recklessly as hell and in twenty years am at fault for zero accidents, while my wife hates driving with me and drives incredibly cautiously and has been at fault in accidents. Can the algorithm see past 'this person accelerates quicker therefore should have a higher premium" because otherwise I feel like the old system was working. It was frustrating to pay more as a young male driver, but I've proven myself and my abilities behind the wheel and wish to continue to pay accordingly.