Sidenote: I wonder if they've considered close follow distance or frequent lane changes as a risk factor.
Sidenote: I wonder if they've considered close follow distance or frequent lane changes as a risk factor.
The problem is in how is dangerous driving assessed. Simple to apply rules lack the understanding of conditions. Telematics are going to be low bandwidth data, almost certainly without enough data to form an understanding of conditions.
There must be some correlation between bad credit and likelihood to be in a collision.
Instead they market cars as exciting race track like vehicles, things that let you do what you want, when you want. And now they will collect data on the people who actually do that.
Personally I would prefer a car that helps me be a safer driver by following the law. Ensuring there are no pedestrians or cyclists in front of me, etc. But at the end of the day, automated enforcement is a good thing, so maybe this will help some people become safer drivers, though the reality that’s probably more likely is that fewer and fewer people will be able to afford/get insurance, and because our country is so car dependent, they will just drive without.
I was in a rental car that had this once. Was on the highway, needed to get around another driver who was being unsafe. Was unable to do so because of the limiter. It was easily the most unsafe vehicle I've ever driven as a result. These mechanisms lack situational awareness and nuance, and thus are a direct threat to my personal safety. They very much need to be banned as a matter of course until such a time as humans aren't allowed to drive at all.
Unless the car has cameras staring at you, it doesn't know if you're checking your mirrors before lane-changes, going 10-under the limit in the far left lane on a busy highway, etc.
Even then, cameras aren't good because assuming people are telling the truth when they use test-taking software, there are false positives that have to be manually-reviewed by proctors when the computer thinks you're looking in the wrong place.
(Edit: it also doesn't know if your mirrors are positioned properly so you do not have a "blindspot". In every modern vehicle I've driven, it is possible to set the mirrors so you can continuously see cars in the left or right lane next you - from the rearview mirror to the sideview mirror to the side glass. Hint, if you can see the side of your own vehicle in your sideview mirror: it is set improperly.)
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> frequent lane changes as a risk factor.
People not willing to change lanes is how you get more traffic and more dangerous driving overall. Traffic should stay right unless passing - which means once someone is done passing, they also need to move to the right. People crusing in the left lane is how backups happen and people trying to make more dangerous lane-changes to pass on the right. Less lane changes would be a bad thing to incentivise.
If more people used cruise control in general, that might help (don't know if any studies have been done about that). As it is now, most people's speeds ebb and flow and that causes traffic, especially when they either consciously or subconscious try to speed up to match someone trying to pass them, or whether it's curves, hills, narrower lanes due to automated tollbooths, bridges, etc.
This is false. Lane changing, causing others to slow down, is a leading cause of traffic waves.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01912...
"Frequent lane-changes in highway merging, diverging, and weaving areas could disrupt traffic flow and, even worse, lead to accidents."