SCOSaltire

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3574010.stm

Thats crazy.

Records ur speed, for how long, where, etc.
Its the policemans dream. So much for civial liberities!

I mean, the insurer will know EVERTHING about ur driving vs speed.

They will charge more, or less, for being on a motorway or b-road. (cost of repair vs chance of accident).

Also, with the logs on internet servers, the ISP are legally bound to give the police info. The same will no doubt come about with this system on cars.

Its 1984 allll over again. A nightmare.

Freak

hmmm
50k a year business mileage + personal miles?

No thanks

EvilKyote

I can see some good possitive potential for a system like this but as suggested it could be open to missuse by greedy police forces etc.


Pros:
Assuming that say your current yearly premium is set as a maximum 'cap' on how much you can pay would mean cheaper insurance for alot of people.

The potential to catch uninsured and taxed cars, (if uninsured and untaxed why the hell is it moving along the A34?!?!?!?!!?! hmmmm)

The potential to catch hit and run motorists by using the time/location of an incident to narrow down suspects.

Hopefully leads to more data to use towards the PROPER and SENSIBLE placement of speedcamera's.

Could be used to gather information to improve the road network in the places it needs it most.

If information is in real time could be fed to travel news services giving faster and more accurate traffic reports

cons:
Could be misused by the police to automatically issue fines if you break the speed limit

Insurers/police can see where you have been (but if you an law abiding citizen then so what?)



Hmmm, Perhaps there are more cons but from what I can see the potential pro's of this if they plan it well enough would make it a very useful system. Obviously as with anyone else I would also be concerned about the opertunities for missuse if there is no proper legislation to prevent that.

I'm not saying YES YES YES GO FOR IT BABY YEEEEEEAH!!!! lol

just saying it has good potential is done properly.

boxst

Hello

I would be interested in the statistics. As theoretically someone who drives more is likely to have more accidents, but in reality I would say those people are more aware of their surroundings and are "better" drivers and less likely to have an accident.

Steve.

OllyK

It will all tie in nicely with the pay as you go bonus additional road tax and mega bonus congestion charge combined with automatic speeding ticket issuing and automatic braking systems that crash the car for you. Becuase the auto braking system was activated the insurance no longer need to pay out as you were obviuosly in the wrong otherwise the system would not have been activated.

Time to go and buy a nice old banger with carbs and points that they can't mess about with.

OllyK

More likely to have an accident, but less likely per mile. That's why women drivers always "appear" to be better drivers. They do considerably less miles on average.

unclebuck

A very sinister development, dressed up as a benign 'money saving scheme'. Since when did insurance companies have our interests at heart?

It's another slip down the slope toward the 'Big Brother' Totalitarian Superstate this country will become in the next 5 - 10 years.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

unless the thief unplugs the box then there is no GPS anymore is there?

It doesn't exactly look difficult to disable does it??? and as it will be in the boot the thief won't even need to go looking for it.!!!!!!!

Freak

i bet if its disconnected at any point your insurance will be void or you have to pay a penalty or something.
they arent that daft

OllyK

At least a tracker is hidden away. They need to try a bit harder with this, like scrap it.

Jiggerypokery

The police will be able to do nothing unless they actually stop the car on the road. You don't need tax or insurance on a vehicle if it is on a trailer being towed.

Tiggs

its a great idea!

i only do about 7,000 pa now i work at home but still pay the same as when i did 3 X that.

id happily have a black box on my car.

Leslie

You could never trust any organisation which had that sort of information EvilKyote, Too easy and convenient to pass that information on to someone else. Its a government's dream piece of equipment.

If this sort of thing happens, it won't be long before you have to request permission to go to the lavatory!

Les

CrisPDuk

Two names:

David Blunkett

Richard Brunstrom


Now really, what are the chances of that happening

hedgehog

As some of you may be aware I have been warning about this for some time. I have also been warning that, in the initial stages it would be introduced by insurance companies with a carrot that you might save money.

Now, just for one minute consider the business model where an insurance company decides it wants to make less profit. Exactly. The motorist is not going to benefit from this scheme in any way.

This scheme will offer nothing to the legal and law abiding motorist except for government control over what you can drive, where you can drive it, when you can drive it and the speed at which you are allowed to make your journey.

Currently they are running these little pilot schemes and leaking the information to soften us up. Within a few more insurance renewals those who drive "performance" cars will HAVE to have one of these devices fitted. It will control the speed of your car and will ensure, for example, that you slow down to 15mph for corners.

The government have been holding meetings with the car manufacturers to ensure that they are building new cars that will work with the system.

That anyone posting on a forum such as this might see even a slight positive angle to such a scheme amazes me and I can only assume that such people do something very different in their cars to anyone else I know.

For anyone interested there are, somewhere in this thread, some links to primary sources for the scheme, which is called Intelligent Speed Adaptation.

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthread.php?t=352927

Just remember, once you sign up to this there is no way back. Personally I'm selling my STi early next year to get rid of it before it becomes worthless. Who wants a performance car when everyone is operated by remote control?

Tiggs

"You could never trust any organisation which had that sort of information EvilKyote, Too easy and convenient to pass that information on to someone else."

yeah.....im sure MI5 want to know when i went to Tescos

OllyK

No but Sainsbury's may pay good money for it and as you are heading in the direction of Tesco they can text you with today's Sainsbury's special offers to get you to go there.

EvilKyote

Yeah your probably correct, shame really


I'm not saying it's the best idea, and I know your probably right and they there is some dark underhand conspiracy behind it all. I'm just saying that in the highly unlikely and remotest ever posibility that they system could be used in a fair and possitive way then it could have some potential, but as you say, very unlikely.

Tiggs

yeah....cause thats easy to do!

and so what? at the moment my text spam is all for stuff i dont want.

OllyK

Yup - a certain provider (probably all) have the technology to know where you are by triangulation from their own network (am sure you have heard the court cases where this has been done to confirm positions at a given time).

The company I used to work for was working with one of the providers to provide just such a targetted text SPAM system. As you walk down the high street you would be sent text from the shops you were passing with the latest offers. Fortunately the must opt in changes put that one on the back burner.

OllyK

Fortunately I don't get any text spam at the moment, and I have no intereste in getting several text message an hour either. I see no need to make it easier to get spamed to death

Tiggs

lol- ohhh, very sinister! so i might get a text from Clarks shoes!

Dracoro

So a technologically aware professional burglar/car thief etc. maight get his hands on some 'unit' that so he can find out when you're out of the house and how far away you are so he leaves just in time before you return. Or finds out where you park your car everyday and can nick it knowing that you never return to it until 5pm etc. and so on. blah blah blah.

Manufacturers may quite a large margin on cars that offer better performance compared to low powered models. If no-one could ever use the performance/handling then they just won't bother anymore and car manufacturers would lose money as everyone's buying the models with low profit margins. I'm sure they'll not sit back and do nothing.

OllyK

I don't recall suggesting it was sinister, just a PITA. If you want to get spamed to hell and back on you phone, then fine, but I'd prefer to use the phone how I want, i.e. to make calls and send the odd text to a mate, rather than have a mobile marketing aid for all the companies out there.

Adrian F

I think alot of this is getting in place Taxation to replace fuel tax as eventually we will not be using nasty oil based fuels and then they would have no Green Arguement for 85% Tax so swap over now so they can still make loads of money out of the motorist.

As to montoring congestion to improve roads! They now where the problems are and are delibrately altering the roads to make it worse any body who can not see this is blind. The M4 bus lane is a classic. you see it all over towns they put in a 24 hour bus lane to reduce a a road to single lane thus creating a queue of traffic where there wasn't one so every junction takes longer to cross and so on and so on. By the way this is offical policy for TFL to increase congestion to "persuade" people to leave the car at home and use the bus.

Jerome

I would suggest that it is pure fantasy to seriously believe that the insurance campanies wouldn't use the system for their own gain, ie, refusing to pay out in the event of a claim because you had got lost and strayed onto a class of road you weren't insured for. Or the fact that you were doing 30.0001mph in a 30 limit. Or you were driving in an enthusiastic manner...

Once these systems are in place, it is only a matter of time before the Govt (Lab or Con) decide to wade in a demand access to all the information gathered. Speeding will be a thing of the past. The Police can disband their traffic departments because no-one can speed any longer without getting caught. Criminals will simply disconnect the system because they know that they will never be actually stopped.

Then, after half the country has lost their licence, accidents will spiral out of control because people will drive along in a daze without any effort to concentrate.

This system sounds great. Because, when I come back to the UK (for visits only!), I can hammer around with impunity in my hire car - firstly because the roads will be virtually empty, secondly because they won't be able to give me points on my Canadian licence, and thirdly, I'll be back in Canada before any fines arrive.

unclebuck

You'd better believe it. Those that think all this proposed intrusion into people's private affairs just government and big business trying to be helpful and save us money will be in for a rude awakening.

UB

Tiggs

lol- you lot watch too much XFiles!

unclebuck

No, but I am watching New Labour like a hawk....

Dracoro

Then you can go back to Canada where the Canadian insurance companies (who are also in the game to make money) are going 'Ohhh, that's a good idea, more money & profit if we do the same'. The systems by then will be interlinked and anyone banned in another country will be also banned (or not insurable) in the UK etc. Remember, many of the large insurers and the underwriters are international companies.