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Comment by jmward01 | Hacker News Reader

I always buy used so I have some time left, but not much. When I bought my last vehicle the person had one of those insurance GPS devices in it. I can't even begin to understand why anyone would do that. It is so obviously going to be used against the driver and it is also obvious that it will eventually become 'required' and that just depresses me.

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If you drive the speed limit and otherwise follow all those things they teach you in drivers ed but almost nobody does once they pass their drivers test those will save you money. The average driver is really bad.

Not at all - telematics schemes also penalise subjective measures such as "over-revving" and "cornering with too much lateral g".

Royal Mail drivers in the UK found themselves being disciplined for exceeding telematics thresholds when the company transitioned back to petrol-engined vans, from diesel, because they are driven in a very different manner.

Those are things I was taught not to do in drivers ed. I don't know how the UK compared. For that matter, I took drivers ed 30+ years ago, and I don't know what all has changed.

Money. The insurance company gives a discount. And honestly, for someone who doesn't share my same strong values for privacy, I don't blame them!

The point about the insurance GPS is that they will eventually use it against the person. 'You were going 5mph over the speed limit before the crash...' that kind of thing. Giving them more information will just lead to the consumer being hurt. Oh, and they will clearly sell that info to anyone they can get to buy it of course. That part isn't great either.

> eventually

No one thinks about "eventually." That's a long time and may never happen to them. "Now" is more important.

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