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.

silence7@slrpnk.net to Technology@lemmy.world – 522 points –
Is Your Driving Being Secretly Scored?
nytimes.com
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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?

There are legal hurdles to raising rates based on this data. The simple and obvious solution is to set the starting price as the worst-case driver scenario, then discount down from that.

It's the exact same thing, but worded different.

and do you have one of those? Because form what I hear they beep when you're being a good drive too and you end up being a worse (than good) driver trying not to get the beeps

I had one years ago... It never made a sound. It just recorded how I drove and I started getting safe driver discounts on my insurance.

I do. It doesn't make any sounds or have any lights. Thing you're describing sounds more like a similar device I know people busted with DUIs end up with forced to being used. It's beeping because it wants them to blow again since it's detecting them driving like shit and thinks they're drunk.

I had one and it definitely beeped if the light turned yellow and I stopped rather than blowing through a red light. It was a frustrating experience because it would happen even when driving a safe speed. You don't get dinged unless you have too many of them, but I suspect in a busy city with stop and go traffic it could be tough. I did end up. With the maximum discount though so it didn't end up being a big deal.

I'm curious, was it beeping because of somewhat harder breaking?

Yes. Not like I was slamming on my brakes, but it was a harder brake than normal. It was pretty sensitive imo, but think they are trying to detect people that are driving too closely to the person in front of them.