New York State OKs insurer’s tracking device that nabs teen driver-texters | Hacker News Reader

New York State OKs insurer’s tracking device that nabs teen driver-texters

capitalnewyork.com

Offered for free? Really? Should the insurance company be sharing some of the increased safety savings with their customers?

well you get lower premiums by being in less wrecks, in theory.

Does anyone else see the issue of how easy it would be to lean down, unplug this thing from the ODBC port, and toss it to the ground? That would kill any tracking or blocking.

That's answered in the FAQ:

> If the Esurance DriveSafe device is removed, you'll receive an alert.

http://www.esurance.com/drive-safe/faq

How is this possible without a jailbreak? Must be an Android app.

It's not an app. It's a piece of hardware; it's also supposed to track speeding and braking behavior.

If it actually prevents phones within the car from receiving calls, I don't see a lot of parents installing it...

It's a device and app:

http://www.esurance.com/drive-safe

That page doesn't say much, but it does say that various things can be blocked while still allowing phone calls (which can be restricted to certain numbers).

There's a great footnote to the app:

> *When the vehicle is in motion, teens with iPhones® will see a banner on their home screen, reminding them not to use their phone while driving. iPhones do not support restriction of phone functionality.

A later bit of fine print says:

> The information provided by Esurance DriveSafe is for customer use only and will not influence your rate in any way. Personalized data generated by this program is hosted by a third party and will never be shared with Esurance. Esurance DriveSafe is available in all states where we do business except MA and PA.

This immediately made me wonder about being compelled to turn over your data in court if you do get into a crash.

So, it appears to work with Androids (only). Not iPhones, and not dumb-phones?

Seems pretty useless.

Gotcha. Hm, seems kind of risky for when it fails and your kid can't call 911 when they need to. Hope they built something in for that but if it doesn't interface with the OS, that's a slim chance. Seems like a risky device to use.

I'd imagine 911 would be whitelisted.

How do they tell whether the teen is driving or a passenger?

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