The AA is embracing Big Brother.
The AA is set to launch a new insurance policy which uses sat-nav technology to track driver performance.
The firm said the system would allow its better drivers to receive cheaper premiums.
It follows similar efforts by smaller insurers. Larger rival Direct Line has told the BBC it is also piloting its own “black box” scheme.
To be fair, the AA have never been particularly competitive as far as I am concerned, so I’ve never taken out a policy with them. Mrs L did use Direct Line for a few years, but they have become increasingly uncompetitive as well. I suspect that this is behind their refusal to cooperate with the online search and compare facilities such as Confused, the operatic chap and that one with the meerkats. Incidentally, the operatic chap got me a really competitive quote for the bike this year.
I will not, under any circumstances, give money to an organisation that tracks my movements. My record of thirty-odd years of driving and riding with no claims and a clean licence should be sufficient to give me a low premium – and using the services of aforesaid websites, I can indeed get one.
“The reports are pretty detailed,” AA spokesman Ian Crowder told the BBC ahead of Wednesday’s formal announcement.
“The point is that these sorts of devices firmly put in the hands of the driver a responsibility for driving safely. It makes you think.”
If that statement doesn’t send a chill down your spine, then you haven’t been paying attention. As an experienced driver, I take responsibility for driving safely anyway. I don’t need Big Brother looking over my shoulder. And, frankly, where I go and when, is none of my insurer’s fucking business. They are paid to cough up if I have an accident and if I do, then I pay a higher premium as a consequence. Nothing more, nothing less.
Extreme speeds would be greeted with “a stern email” to the driver.
Fuck off already.
Elsewhere, car hire firm Avis said telematics is “one to watch”, and said it might consider using the technology in its vehicles.
Remind me to never hire a car from Avis.
“You may say you don’t want a ‘spy in the car’ as some call them, but others may say that if this is one way of making my premiums reflect my safety on the road, this will be of interest.”
Says Malcom Tarling of the Association of British Insurers. Yes, and Boxer thought that Napoleon and the other pigs had his best interests at heart, too. I’m absolutely sure that the hard of thinking will lap this one up. Having been hit with ridiculously high premiums that do not reflect actual risk, they have been nicely softened up for the stiletto between the ribs.
But Keith Peat, a spokesman for the Association for British Drivers, told the BBC he was worried that drivers who did not want to allow telematics in their vehicle would face higher costs.
Mr Peat is most likely correct. This will be used to bludgeon the refusniks to comply. After all, if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear, eh?
“Providing the drivers give their consent it is OK,” he said.
I will never give my consent. Ever.
“But what we are totally against is people who don’t give their consent being penalised.”
Once the refusniks have been denormalised, of course they will.
With you on this. I’m not insuring my bike with the AA.
I was pondering this the other day. As the EU have to somehow pay for their huge GPS rival vanity project I expect that it can’t be too long before all new cars ship with one of these boxes in place. As you rightly say, this is just the softening up phase – giving people the ‘choice’ to ‘use’ the technology to ‘their benefit’ before rolling it out along with a per mile travelled means of taxing road/fuel use. Very depressing…
The solution is simple. Buy a lead lined bag – used for taking camera film through airport x-ray machines – and put your black box in it when you travel. Works on mobile phones too. Of course – nothing to hide, nothing to fear………….
Well, I’d agree with you that I’d never insure with the AA on that basis, but I’ve no real problem with them doing it per se. Fundamentally, they’re a private firm and can set the conditions on which they are prepared to insure you. Such a box would provide extra information, such as speed, areas you frequently park, etc which may have some relevance to risk. As a result, they can tailor their premiums accordingly – potentially reducing charges to lower risk drivers.
At the same time, such data is clearly invasive and one would expect the market would always include firms who – perhaps for a premium – wouldn’t use such technology. And I’d be insured with them. The key thing is to ensure a competitive market (and I accept a degree of scepticism is needed with the current market).
Of course, the bigger risk is that the Government will be all behind the black boxes and jump on this as an opportunity. Governments of all colours have long been interested in road pricing. One problem has been that the method that would involve the creation of fewest pinchpoints & least congestion (through toll booths, etc) is the fitting of sat-nav boxes in cars that would automatically relay data on which roads were used & when. Drivers could then receive monthly bills for their road use. Of course, the biggest obstacles have been the sheer infrastructure cost, compliance issues and political unpopularity any government would face if it made such boxes compulsory. This way they could get the insurance industry to do the dirty work for them.
And as a private individual I can refuse to insure with them and openly state why. I would hope that the market punishes them for it. Unfortunately, the current generation has been softened up for just this type of intrusive behaviour.
I hate to use the slippery slope argument, but this is very much a slippery slope.
There are two risks here – government is one. However, the distortion of the market is another. Refuseniks should not have to pay a premium in order to avoid being spied upon. Motor insurance is compulsory, so the insurers are at liberty to force this upon us if they all gang together. That is the risk here.
So, this box can track if you travel at 80mph on the motorway but can do fuck all if you drive on the wrong side of the road, or stare at a passing woman instead of looking ahead, etc etc.
Can it track if you are tailgating someone but below the speed limit?
GPS ‘blockers’ are readily available via technology websites. They even do ‘mobile phone blockers’ too if you’re that way inclined……
A field day for hackers. Love to be able to send signals indicating, e.g., I was doing 80 MPH up and down my (short) driveway. 😈