People Are Slowly Realizing Their Auto Insurance Rates Are Skyrocketing Because Their Car Is Covertly Spying On Them

This is exactly what was predicted as the result of corporate surveillance and targeted ads. They are part of schemes to extract more revenue from you. Another example is the rising premium for health insurance. But people apparently had "nothing to hide"!

Ugh. That reminds me of a time probably around 2012. I was working for a pretty large company, and they had our health insurance provider come in. The insurance provider was offering $100 to any employees that came in and gave a sample of blood. This was not a blood drive, they wanted samples. There was a line going down the hallway of people excited to get a benjamin. I encouraged them to get off the line because they were just going to use the data from the blood tests to raise our rates. Everybody laughed at me.

Couple months later all of our insurance rates got jacked up. Like how did people not see what was going on? Did they really think the insurance company was there to give away free money and not somehow turn a profit? Fucking bananas.
- Would anything have prevented an increase in rates? I'd bet if everyone got out of line, the rate increases would have been the same or higher. The only difference would be no one received $100.

100% against everything being monitored and data sold like it is….. but part of me wishes there was a way to work towards getting bad drivers off of the roads.

This is not the way to do that as the insurance companies only have one goal and that is to raise profits.

But when you stand on any random street corner and 30-60 % of every driver driving by is looking down at their cell phone, it is very scary.

People don’t use turn signals, speed through residential neighborhoods, change lanes in the middle of intersections, it’s insane. We need to make our world less car reliant, it’s unacceptable.

You get rid of cars and you stop designing society to accommodate the one edge case where someone lives 100miles away from a city that they have to commute by car to everyday for some reason.
- That's not why most people drive cars. I've lived in cities with public transport all my life. But when I got my driving license, my life quality increased enormously. It's like night and day. Not only can I drive where I want when I want, I can avoid other commuters that are very often loud or annoying. I don't have to stand at bus stops or train stations and seeing them being delayed or canceled either.
  
  I agree that some people drive poorly though. But the solution is to train them better, not to get rid of cars. You can hardly have an adult life with family without a car.
- Edge case
  
  Thank you for your well educated and nuanced opinion that takes people who can't afford to live in a city into account, very cool!
- I live 100 miles away because I never want to deal with city slickers like you.
You will never be able to take away someone's license for bad driving if doing so basically makes them unemployable and incapable of taking care of themselves. We need cheap, practical alternatives to cars in order to reduce the impact of bad drivers.
- Yup. There’s a cause-and-effect chain that the anti-car crowd likes to ignore. The reality is that we need widely available alternative transport before restricting cars. If you start by restricting cars, all you’re doing is making it impossible for struggling people to get and keep a job. And that’s not good for anyone.
  
  Give us cities that are walkable, with no point less than a 10 minute walk away from a train station.
  
  Give us trains that are affordable and run regularly, not $10 per ride and only run every 45-60 minutes.
  
  Give us actual separated sidewalks and prioritized pedestrian traffic, instead of roads without sidewalks and intersections that make pedestrians wait 2-4 cycles before giving them a crossing signal. Give us busses that actually run on time and run regularly.
  
  Give us public transport that doesn’t shut down at 2AM, when all of the drunks are leaving the bars and are pushed into driving home because there is no public transport available after the bars close.
  
  My daily commute by car is 13 minutes. Via public transport, it is nearly three hours. Without a car, I need to go 20 miles north to a connecting city, wait roughly hour for the next train, then go 20 miles south to get near my work. Then it’s another 20-30 minutes of waiting for the bus (if it’s even running on time) for another 5 miles. Or I can just fucking drive the 10 miles and be there in 13 minutes. No, I can’t walk because it’s nearly all highway driving and there are no sidewalks. No, I can’t ride a bike because no bikes are allowed on the highway.
  
  Fix public transport. Make it usable. And then start restricting cars. If my commute was a 13 minute drive or a 15 minute train ride, I’d pick the train ride every time. But it’s not.
Obligatory US, I think the better way of filtering bad drivers is more stringent and frequent testing through the DMV (or your state's equivalent). Look at Germany, they don't mess around when it comes to licensing. I'm mid 30s, and haven't had to retest or do any form of continuing driver's education or retesting since I was 16.

It's a little trickier here in the US due to our cities being built for cars, and being without one can be a huge detriment, especially with most public transit being a shitshow. But I agree, we definitely need some mechanisms to weed out bad drivers.
- Well GM and Goodyear lobbied against public transit when they wanted everyone to buy a car, and probably still do , is why public transit is so awful.
- Licensing is also harder here in Belgium.
  
  The drivers and in the netherlands are still some of the shittiest drivers outside of Italy.
  
  80%+ of bmw and range rover drivers (of which a huge percentage of cars are) never ever use their turn signals, people literally stand still in the middle of intersections in a 5 car pileup combined with the fact that a huge percentage of people blatantly run red lights so when the light turns green in the opposite direction during a busy period, hundreds of intersections are completely blocked causing immense traffic. This comes from the rule where you generally pass behind the car turning opposite of you. When you have a 5 car pileup in both directions, nobody can pass behind.
  
  Not to mention the rampant "Belgian exit" where cars speed up over the speed limit to go from the right lane, passing a few cars on the left, only to re-enter the right lane past a solid line to screech into the exit a second or two faster. I see this one multiple times every time I drive.
  
  Strict requirements don't mean much if your driving culture is completely fucked. But culture is also the hardest thing to change.
- While licensing is definitely harder in Germany you also do not have to retest or do anything else to keep your license. It's actually a problem that it's pretty hard to take away the license from old unfit people (and the German government actually blocked EU legislation improving that).
Reliable public transport with a robust interstate passenger railway system coupled with a well designed intracity bus system, along with well maintained biking paths everywhere else would go a long way to getting bad drivers off the road.

We can't get bad drivers off the road when basic everyday living requires driving. There are cost effective alternatives in use across the world. America just has to learn to accept good ideas that others have pioneered.
- Trollies?
part of me wishes there was a way to work towards getting bad drivers off of the roads.

There is: it's called zoning reform.
- I have seen some cool videos about this, although they are kind of boring I guess…. Using infrastructure to bring the speed limit down naturally and force drivers to keep their hands on the wheel
Make the passing grade for a driving test 20% higher than it currently is, and make everyone take a driving test every five years. You get one re-test if you fail.

And once you hit 70, driving tests every year.

Anyone who fails under the new regulations would have been causing a lot of problems on the roads.
- You had me until only 1 chance to fail; instead, you should temporarily get your license reduced back to the level 2 learners license. Then another chance to fail and retest before you get bumped down to a level 1 learners license.
  
  Also, every year for 70+ is excessive. Passing a cog screen should be sufficient. Retesting every 5 years is already pretty good.
Want to get bad drivers off the roads? Give them another way to get around.
but part of me wishes there was a way to work towards getting bad drivers off of the roads.

More stringent requirements for drivers license? Actually punishing people for texting and driving?

Culturally you can help too. I personally lay on the horn when someone is texting and driving.
Autonomous vehicles are the only achievable solution to distracted driving. Individuals can be nice but people as a whole are lazy and selfish pieces of shit. You'll never get anywhere close to even 90% doing the right thing just by relying on people's good intentions.
- Could public transit be considered to reduce the need for everyone to drive?
- Full autonomous vehicles, and particularly significant levels of adoption of them are decades away. It's taken roughly 20 years for hybrid vehicles to become "big", and that's after the tech already existed. We still don't even have anywhere close to reliable full autonomous driving.
  
  It usually is much more effective to make plans and changes based off what currently exists rather than anything that isn't absolute immediate future. No reason to say no to the good because you're busy waiting for "perfect".
- How about trains? That way 99% of people dont' even need to drive, ever.
I see a mother fucker run through four-way stops nearly every day by my home. It's infuriating.
People don’t use turn signals, speed through residential neighborhoods, change lanes in the middle of intersections, it’s insane.

It's been like that since I was a kid in the 80's.
- Back then cars also made bad drivers go squish.
  
  Unfortunately so did everyone else involved
One part of the answer is enforcement. Ticket the shit out of dangerous behavior and people will do it less. I literally never see anyone pulled over for traffic violations anymore, whereas it was common 10-20 years ago. What happened to traffic cops, and why don't we have cameras that detect this shit? In Colorado people don't even bother to renew their tags and there are no repercussions. It's like fucking Mad Max out there, I hate it so much. Obviously making the world less car reliant is critical, but the lack of any visible enforcement is absurd too.

OK but why is my state mandated minimum insurance nearly $90 a month for a Toyota Prius that I only drive like 30 miles per week?

My liability only plan was $55 in 2018.

I'm over 30 years old with no tickets or accidents on my record.

Maybe the whole data farming thing is being used as an excuse also, but this is bullshit all up and down.

I have never driven a car that tracks me, and I pay approx $50 a month for two cars.
- My car is seven years older than me and basic traffic insurance is ~300€ (equivalent) per year.
How long you been with your current insurer?
- I have been with mine 30 years. Still getting reamed

My vehicle is not trackable but my insurance tripled in two years so there is more going on than data harvesting

The article alleges, though without evidence, that the tracking is just an excuse to raise rates.

A quick search didn't turn up quite the right statistics, but traffic fatalities have been seriously on the rise in the US. That probably implies higher payouts. (WP)

But also, when trackable unsafe drivers have to pay more (and trackable safe driver less), then the unsafe drivers will prefer to be untrackable. You may be on the receiving end of the recalculated actuary tables.
Untrackable might mean you get lumped with the worst actuary table in terms of risk as an unknown quantity or as a form of pressure to let them track you or as a way to create a defence moat of people (your rates will go up like these untrackable vehicles) if the government tries to intervene to stop them from basing rates to tracking.
“Cost of living”. Sure people will start getting inflation beating payrises soon.
- Cost of living for the shareholders.
I'm driving way safer and way less miles, combination of shorter commute and I don't want to wear my truck out driving like an ass....I'm my rate is literally doubled
Mine nearly doubled over 2 years. They cited increased costs of parts and repair work. Might be true, might not be. Might be they increased prices more than their costs did.
Your car might not be trackable but do you use Google maps or Waze?
- A lot more than i used to. I imagine there are hundreds of ways the public has layed themselves open for exploitation
Your phone isn't trackable? You avoided all the license plate scanners? Your work/home has a higher rate of accidents between them?

Is it too much to ask for a car that doesn't spy on me, is reasonably comfortable, is efficient, and maybe has a few extra "smart" features to help me not run into other people? I guess my bike will do for now.

I have a 17 year old car with ESP (electronic stability) and without any 'smart' stuff. I'll run it until its last breath.
They have those cars. You're not rich enough.
That's a smarter bet anyway.
You're going to want something older

So they'll lower rates if the data shows safe driving right? Right?

It's a group thing. Because everyone around you are collectively driving like assholes, your rate goes up to compensate
False
Maybe the insurance cooperatives might. And then the private ones might alter strategies to compete.

Can’t wait till all the genealogy companies like 23 & me start selling our genetic information to insurance companies.

... you think they don't? You need to read the fine print again. It's not proven where it's going, but they absolutely have the right to sell your genetic information and already do.
- Yup... Your family has genes showing a history of heart problems? That's gonna costa ya!
https://gizmodo.com/23andme-is-selling-your-data-but-not-how-you-think-1794340474

https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/23andme-sells-anonymous-dna-data-to-drug-company-for-20-million/article_ea59fe96-79df-11ee-8473-47193d62656b.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-30/23andme-will-give-gsk-access-to-consumer-dna-data

https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/377206-23andme-accused-of-having-fire-sale-of-customer-dna-data

The usual warnings about "anonymized data" and "data aggregation" apply.
It creeped me how many youtube channels I watched suddenly started pushing it.
- Fwiw they're just collecting a paycheck. Sure it's scummy for them to not reject the businesses offering them the money but tbh I really don't blame them - I'd probably take the cash too.
  
  Depending on the channel size sponsored ad reads can deliver upwards of multiple thousand per video for the creator. If you see multiple channels with the same ads, it's bc the company advertising got a big budget approved, that's it.
  
  Imo just skip the ad reads (or get sponsorblock) and forget they exist. Usually the creator doesn't even give a fuck who's paying them or why. They are victims of the system too, not maliciously peddling garbage. I do wish they didn't have to peddle anything, but here we are.

In a civilized world, heads would roll over this.

It used to be that when someone used the phrase "in a civilized world", it was intended to move you back into it. Nowadays it just feels like wild gesticulating at an impossible state...

It is a civilized world. All autonomous worker drones are using 94% of cognitive resources just justifying maintenance resources. And the ones who accidentally got better CPUs are too small in population to matter.

Makes me glad my, going on 17 year old Toyota will likely run forever and is as dumb as a box of rocks regarding this stuff.

As someone who daily drives a 20 year old Toyota, I couldn’t agree more.
- I no longer have to daily drive mine so as I said I hope it lasts a LONG time!

us insurance always sounded like a scam.

moreso now.

Mine tried to get me to plug in a monitoring device into our cars' OBD-II ports after we signed up. I said Hell Naw and returned them shits to the sender. They said my rates would go up if I didn't use it and they didn't really change.

Next car I get will have to be neutered of such spyware, since they're apparently building it all in now. Current car just had a box I unplugged to disable the 3G cellular network connectivity and the car works just fine without it.

We lowkey need a database of how to airgap cars. Spying hardware started being common long enough ago that people aren't really going to be able to avoid it when buying used, unless they have the time and money to maintain a classic car.

It isn't just your driving either. They also very commonly log location and audio inside the car as well.
- Yes!! It frustrates me so much when the proposed answer is "buy an older car", which is not a longterm solution.
  
  It would be cool to have an iFixit-like score for each model.

I just don't understand how car manufacturers can do this. We need better privacy laws. Also, why is it a game of always protesting and backlash just to keep our basic rights? Smh

It makes them more money. And most of their customers couldn't even explain how their engine works. And if the customer had an actual choice they would have purchased a more expensive car without this tracking.

maybe there is a way to disable the mobile module in these vehicles?

No data means you get the highest rates.

You can't solve systemic problems without regulations.
That's ok. Most won't do so. And if you have a "malfunctioning" module, then you probably aren't maintaining your car properly, so rates will have to be adjusted accordingly.

Here's a "funny" story. Back in the day I was working (IT) for insurance companies. I've pitched an idea to one of the larges companies about a device connected to an OBD port to track a driver's habits and adjust premiums based on that. I was turned down, but I heard from an unofficial source that the company was already testing such a device. That was 15 years ago.

All your anecdote tells me is that you have questionable ethics.
- It's rude to judge a person on the basis of a vague description of an idea. My idea was to collect the driver's data (harsh breaking, rapid acceleration, previous history, etc.) and set the premiums accordingly. Someone who drove carefully would pay less and someone who drove recklessly would pay more. Keep in mind, this was back when Google was still a "don't be evil" company and it was before the days of surveillance capitalism.
So you were the "horse armor DLC" of car insurance companies. Congratulations
I hope you step in water while wearing socks.
Imagine sharing this anecdote with no shame.
Here’s a “funny” story. Back in the day I was working (IT) for insurance companies. I’ve pitched an idea to one of the larges companies about a device connected to an OBD port to track a driver’s habits and adjust premiums based on that. I was turned down, but I heard from an unofficial source that the company was already testing such a device. That was 15 years ago.

Privacy regulations? They don't know how to handle all the data? They realized they'd have to triple rates based on the actual data they were receiving?
Seat have me a OBD device as a "gift" for my new vehicle back in 2021, and supervised me installing their app. The car has an option to opt out of sending data to SEAT via my phone too. Totally not sketchy.

Wait, is this why my insurance is suddenly so low? Does it go both ways? People always call me a "boring" driver. As far as I'm concerned, driving on the open road shouldn't be "fun", it should be taken seriously. There are places you can go to drive for fun at no one else's expense.

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