Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: 230RN on June 16, 2015, 11:12:19 AM
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So I got one of those OBD (automotive On-Board-Diagnostic) plug-in dealies so the insurance company could see what a great driver I am. About 25-30 years ago I learned how to actually drive, as opposed to merely "operating a car." Haven't had a ticket or an accident that was my fault since then, and only one, at that. (Knock wood.)
It monitors a couple of things, among which are braking events and night-time driving events. They say driving between the hours of midnight and 4 AM is "bad." OK, but since I retired, I do a lot of erranding in those hours since I'm a natural-born nightowl. OK, so I'll have to talk to them about that.
But my second week's report showed three "evil" braking events with my comments as to what I was doing while I was out erranding as follows:
Week Jun 8 - Jun 14, 2015
6 Trips - 18.3 Miles - 1.1 Hour -
3 Braking Events
Date & Time / Duration / Description
06/14/15, 09:31 1.0 Seconds 24 - 16 Mph
^ Traffic light at Wadsworth & 38th, sudden slowdown by everybody in front of me.
8 mph/sec
06/14/15, 09:56 1.0 Seconds 37 - 30 Mph
^Downhill on 44th from radar sensor flashing at me (my bad)
7 mph/sec
06/14/15, 09:56 3.0 Seconds 25 - 2 Mph
^Traffic light turned yellow, nobody behind me
7.66 mph/sec
The bolding shows my calculations of deceleration.
I've got a lot of questions about this whole sensing affair, like how often do they transmit to their receivers, how do they sense "speeding" on different roads, and a whole bunch of stuff I've been prowling around the net on for answers.
But a couple of things bother me right now.
I have smaller-than-standard tires on my car for unavoidable circumstances --one standard tire got destroyed and I had to replace "it" with all four tires and all they had was smaller ones.
As a consequence, my speedometer reads about 31-32 mph when, according to the radar stations along various streets, I'm actually going only 30.
Now I figure they can probably sense a "braking event" in a couple of ways...
(A) ...by an accelerometer built in to the nanny box.
(B) ...by brake pedal position (which I found out some OBD II systems can do) or various brake pressure readings like power brake diaphragm and brake line pressures.
(C) ...by other engine/transmission parameters such as calculations from RPM, gear ratios, manifold vacuum, etc.
(I doubt they could do it from GPS data because I don't think GPS responds that fast or that accurately.)
If it's an accelerometer in the nanny box itself, assuming proper calibration (which is sometimes questioned, according to what I picked in my amateurish search), I have no quarrel, except for the low threshold to create a braking event. It seems too low, probably around 7mph per second. I also wonder how they're figuring in downhill or uphill braking accelerations, where gee would have a cosine effect.
If it's by brake pedal position, the first thing I noticed when I bought the car was that the brake pedal felt low to me compared to my previous car. However, it has not changed in the years I've been driving that car, so maybe that's the "standard" for that car.
If it's by engine/transmission parameters, then it's clearly unfair by some small amount due to the smaller tire size. (Braking from 31-32 mph (on the speedometer) to zero will give a higher deceleration reading than from the "real" 30 mph to zero.
So, while I'm still <ahem> "researching" this whole nanny box thing, I wondered if youse* guys and gals would like to kick it around and see if youse had any hints or other comments on this stuff.
Terry, 230RN
That's Brooklynese for "you-all."
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My thought is to just make a cheap old laptop a "ODBII simulator" and rip your car's firmware and digital VIN, and just let it simulate sedate 25 mph trips to and from work, and a run to the store every week... >:D
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This is why I refuse to accept a small discount for having some random computer dictate if I am driving safely or not.
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My thought is to just make a cheap old laptop a "ODBII simulator" and rip your car's firmware and digital VIN, and just let it simulate sedate 25 mph trips to and from work, and a run to the store every week...
This is on my list of possibilities. Also the simple powered passthrough idea that has been tossed around elsewhere, since they only capture the VIN on powerup; plug in via the passthrough, let it get the VIN, hook up a 9v battery to keep it running, take it inside and plug into a 12V wall wart. Reconnect when it's time to go on a nice long open road drive where it will build up realistic mileage for the month and very few braking incidents.
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(C) ...by other engine/transmission parameters such as calculations from RPM, gear ratios, manifold vacuum, etc.
GPS can actually give you acceleration, but I figure it's just yanking speed off the basis of the spedometer, which is run through the computer these days. And yes, I figure that means you're getting screwed, but less so than me, my spedo is 5 mph fast @ 55, meaning it reads 60 when I'm doing 55.
This is due to federal law that the spedo can't be slow, and I drive a truck where bigger tires are an *option*.
When I get the tires I bought used, which are bigger, I'll have to see if it drops the number of events.
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I've seen a couple of OBD hacking sites in my so-called research, but I don't understand 90% of the jargon, so it's out of the question (besides probably being illegal). I spent a while just trying to find out what "CAN" meant, for instance. Sure, to those of you who deal with it very day, you know what it is offhand.
I also wonder about how much they can squeeze out of the data (although it's probably in the car's computer anyhow) if there's an actual accident. Is it like an aircraft "black box?"
One thing I noticed is that I'm probably driving a little worse now, since I'm a little distracted by trying to think about what the nanny box is thinking about my driving. :)
(https://boundbytheword.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/crabby-old-lady.jpg)
I dunno, I'll play with it for a while and see what develops, and what the insurance company says about my nighttime driving habits. If they can't change, that, it might be a deal-breaker.
AJDual said,
...just let it simulate sedate 25 mph trips to and from work, and a run to the store every week...
You forgot "and to church on Sundays."
Really a fascinating technology, all in all, and I'm still interested in comments or explanations of how they do it all.
Terry, 230RN
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^^^In my risk management journals, I have read about how the manufacturer can extract a surprising amount of data from the car's black box. I know this has been an issue in lawsuits over accidents.
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Yea I use torque and it gets a ton
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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I also wonder about how much they can squeeze out of the data (although it's probably in the car's computer anyhow) if there's an actual accident. Is it like an aircraft "black box?"
No, there's minimal recording going on, mostly some continuing optimization. However, some newer(and generally more expensive) cars today do have actual black boxes that records something like the last 5 minutes of driving.
I dunno, I'll play with it for a while and see what develops, and what the insurance company says about my nighttime driving habits. If they can't change, that, it might be a deal-breaker.
It probably is. You see, those hours of the day are when the accident rate is at it's highest due to drunks & tired people on the road.
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It probably is. You see, those hours of the day are when the accident rate is at it's highest due to drunks & tired people on the road.
And ironically, that's when probably 50% of my mileage happens, but also probably the safest driving I do; coming home from Church dances 100-150 miles away, and as soon as I'm out of DFW, I tend to be in very light traffic.
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And ironically, that's when probably 50% of my mileage happens, but also probably the safest driving I do; coming home from Church dances 100-150 miles away, and as soon as I'm out of DFW, I tend to be in very light traffic.
Church dances 100-150 miles away? How many miles do you drive a year? You might DQ yourself from that alone.
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Church dances 100-150 miles away? How many miles do you drive a year? You might DQ yourself from that alone.
Shhh! Don't tell my insurance company, but I put on 28,000 miles in the last year. :P
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Church dances 100-150 miles away? How many miles do you drive a year? You might DQ yourself from that alone.
Well, this has been an odd year, but I didn't get the device until after the 475 miles each way trip to the Rio Grande Valley. Normally I go to 1-2 of those dances a month. Then again, my daily commute is a bit over 6 miles each way, mom's house (once a week) is a bit under 10, and WalMart is 3, with most of the town closer than WalMart, so until I started taking the Aikido class twice a week, 40 miles away, the dances accounted for about half of my monthly mileage.
According to some hacker groups, the Progressive Snapshot uses the speedometer signal for braking, its own GPS for distance, and the VIN to verify that it's in the right car. They say speed vs location (to check if you're speeding) isn't monitored, and odometer reading isn't a standard OBDII data point, (the cars that send it use manufacturer specific codes for it) so it isn't tracked. Thus, the powered passthrough is a valid possibility, (keeping the VIN stored by delivering continuous power to the "always on" pin of the OBDII connector, should be hot on pin 16 and ground on pin 4, so it thinks your car is just sitting) though you'd want to store it in a fixed location within a reasonable GPS margin of error of where you remove/reinstall it, (hanging on the garage wall comes to mind) so they don't start wondering why your car travels a lot with the engine off.
Hmm...looks like the easy way to do it; make yourself a 12V supply with a female (car side) OBDII port for in the house/garage, and a temporary supply (9V battery to a male OBDII) to get from the car to the wall wart. Plug in the passthrough in the car, plug the Snapshot into one of the ports on it. When you're ready for an undocumented trip, plug your battery into the other port on the cable, unplug the cable, move it to your storage location and plug the cable into your 12V supply, then unplug your battery. Power is never interrupted to the Snapshot, so it doesn't go looking for the VIN again and thinks it's just sitting in the designated car reading nothing from the computer while the GPS registers that it hasn't moved beyond normal position drift. Reverse the process later to get it back in the car.
Presumably, if it actually requests the VIN rather than receiving it automatically at key-on or engine start or something, you could even use this process to swap it into your local little old lady's car so they only see you driving 20 miles an hour to church and bingo. Not sure exactly how the VIN retrieval works, though, and it would be my luck to drop it in her car right before she heads off to the salt flats for a weekend of racing.
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If you have ABS then you have individual wheel speed sensors on each corner and those readings can easily give you deceleration rates. Same for the spedo sensor as it is electronic these days and it's reading will give acceleration and deceleration in addition to speed just by comparing speed over time.
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If you have ABS then you have individual wheel speed sensors on each corner and those readings can easily give you deceleration rates. Same for the spedo sensor as it is electronic these days and it's reading will give acceleration and deceleration in addition to speed just by comparing speed over time.
Problem is that it's only looking for a 7mph/second drop as "hard braking" to show you're being unsafe, without considering the starting speed. Dropping from 60 to 53 might be nailing the brakes when you see a cop, but dropping from 7 to full stop quickly is usually a pretty reasonable move; either you were already goping slow in anticipation of a need to stop quickly, or you misjudged the distance to the stop line and had to tighten up a bit.
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There are no doubt all kinds of ways to spook the OBDII reader, but will the Ins. company cover you if you do happen to get in a serious accident, and they find that your OBDII reader is still sending data showing that you are on a leisurely drive somewhere else because it's hooked up to a laptop in your house? :facepalm:
I don't think they'll take kindly to fraud.
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There are no doubt all kinds of ways to spook the OBDII reader, but will the Ins. company cover you if you do happen to get in a serious accident, and they find that your OBDII reader is still sending data showing that you are on a leisurely drive somewhere else because it's hooked up to a laptop in your house?
So keep your regular OBDII dongle plugged in, and have some trusted neighbor go unplug their device as soon as he's notified. (Even better would be to have it plugged into an outlet you can turn off from your phone directly.)
"Well, I kept getting a check engine light and needed to run Torque on this trip to see what was wrong."
If you're a few minutes from home, I doubt they're going to check closely enough to disprove that and/or assume whatever documentation of the wreck time couldn't possibly be 5-10 minutes off. Harder if you're a few hours' drive out, and their box says the car was sitting in the driveway at the time of the wreck.
As for spoofing it with false drive info, the best way to do that would be a GPS-equipped tablet or similar that you could carry with you, giving them data that's merely adjusted to fit the "good driver" profile, (i.e. no speeding or hard braking) but still gets you where you're going, albeit probably a little later, though a well written simulation could make up time by going over actual speed but under the limit through congested areas. If it takes it a couple extra minutes to arrive at the accident scene, it will likely still be well within tolerance for whatever the accident report says. Of course, this still leaves no good way to deal with "dangerous time" driving, but even simply spoofing speed data could eliminate the "hard braking" negative points.
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Its a lot of trouble to go through to save a little money.
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So, while I'm still <ahem> "researching" this whole nanny box thing, I wondered if youse* guys and gals would like to kick it around and see if youse had any hints or other comments on this stuff.
Of course.
Remove the device from the vehicle, set it on an earth berm in the country, and see if you can score 5 hits out of 10 rounds of 9mm from your favorite Glock.
Or just "field test" it for resistance to a 3-pound sledge hammer.
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I also wonder about how much they can squeeze out of the data (although it's probably in the car's computer anyhow) if there's an actual accident. Is it like an aircraft "black box?"
The newer ones are black boxes, and becoming more so every couple of years.
It was at least eight years ago, and maybe closer to ten, that my brother told me about what the "black box" in a then-current BMW could do. Guy came in with a very noisy engine. Mechanics ripped into it and found most of the valves were bent. Brother (who was the service manager) got to explain to the irate customer that the engine would not be replaced under warranty because said irate customer had been racing the car.
Irate customer absolutely swore that he always drove very conservatively and sedately -- right up until brother showed him the printout from the back box, showing that he had been exceeding the engine's redline by at least 1,000 RPM regularly.
If they could do that then, I don't want to find out what they can do now.
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This kind of thing is new to me. Does it send you some sort of log or report? I'm still struggling with the idea that using the brakes is a bad thing.
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This kind of thing is new to me. Does it send you some sort of log or report? I'm still struggling with the idea that using the brakes is a bad thing.
I have a website I can log into that gives me a breakdown. Right now I'm projected at a 5% discount -
A- Mileage, B- Braking, B- Time of Day, A+ speed.
Note on speed: Don't break 80mph, that's it.
Using the brakes isn't a bad thing, do you remember how buses stop? That's how you do it. Nice and gentle. Coast to a stop, like you have all the time in the world.
Tim of day -
Lowest risk: Sat&Sun, 5 AM-11PM.
Low risk: M-F 4AM - 12PM
Moderate: 12PM - 11PM
High: 11PM - 4AM (5AM Sat&Sun)
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Using the brakes isn't a bad thing, do you remember how buses stop? That's how you do it. Nice and gentle. Coast to a stop, like you have all the time in the world.
Not an option in a town with a lot of little old ladies who are convinced that as long as they never exceed 25mph, they don't have to slow down for stop signs.
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Its a lot of trouble to go through to save a little money.
Spendthrift ! :) Actually, I'm just investigating what it does, how, and why, like a new kid's toy. After a while, I imagine I'll just ignore it. Installation was simply a matter of flipping open the ODB door and plugging it in. The nannybox is specifically for your make, model, and year of the car. There was a sealing label on the box which described my car.
griz asked,
This kind of thing is new to me. Does it send you some sort of log or report? I'm still struggling with the idea that using the brakes is a bad thing.
Yes, as I implied in my OP, there is a website to get the reported data. Apparently, more insurance companies do it than I was aware of. (State Farm doesn't, I asked.) I believe the main supplier of these devices may be OCTO, www.OctoUSA.Dom. When I get enough intelligent questions together, I'm going to contact them for details, if they'll give them up.
When I first called my new insurance company about it, I was a little concerned about the "braking report," since I use my brakes (and two toots on the horn) a lot to signal pedestrians and other cars that I'm backing up, and to signal drivers behind me that there's a slowdown up ahead and the like. They told me not to worry about that, they were only recording "hard" braking. Mmmmkay.
But I think that maybe 7 mph/sec is a low threshold, especially if you're driving in rush hour traffic, where lane changers may suddenly cut right in front of you and the like. (That 7mph/s is a guess from the slim report data I got right away.) I may look at that in future reports. The question is, who decided what was "excessive braking" and other parameters, such as what "reckless driving" and "hard turns" are and how they measure them.
So, while all this looks like "a lot of trouble," it's still very interesting how they do it all, and how they decided on the values involved in their reported events.
As I said in the OP,
I've got a lot of questions about this whole sensing affair, like how often do they transmit to their receivers, how do they sense "speeding" on different roads, and a whole bunch of stuff I've been prowling around the net on for answers.
Hence this thread.
Terry, 230RN
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It would be interesting to see that sort of information reported on one of the new self driving cars. I suspect they would get high marks since they would program them to drive safely, but even a machine will have a "braking event" happen rather than plow in to some cell phone obsessed driver who pulls out in front of them.
That said, if you want to avoid the demerits of driving at night, perhaps you could set the car's clock from AM to PM?
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No actual clock in the car. Apparently they're time-stamping time from software on their end, or at the receiving equipment.
I might try noting the actual time on my watch, deliberately slamming on the brakes, then seeing what time the event shows up on my report.
Another thing I'm curious about is on the downloaded report, they include a map of my area, but I don't see any indication on it of the actual route I took.
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The newer ones are black boxes, and becoming more so every couple of years.
It was at least eight years ago, and maybe closer to ten, that my brother told me about what the "black box" in a then-current BMW could do. Guy came in with a very noisy engine. Mechanics ripped into it and found most of the valves were bent. Brother (who was the service manager) got to explain to the irate customer that the engine would not be replaced under warranty because said irate customer had been racing the car.
Irate customer absolutely swore that he always drove very conservatively and sedately -- right up until brother showed him the printout from the back box, showing that he had been exceeding the engine's redline by at least 1,000 RPM regularly.
If they could do that then, I don't want to find out what they can do now.
I remember fixing some emissions equipment on a 2004 chevy. Part of the fix was that the engine had to go through a self-diagnostic cycle which happened after the engine stabilized at a certain temperature and has been driven at 50-57 mph on level ground for approximately 5 minutes.
With just a cheap ODBII reader bought from Costco, you can glean a lot of information from events that trip the check engine light- example: speed, engine rpm, ambient temperature, barometric pressure, etc... This was just a snapshot of a moment in time, the OBDII system monitors all of this data in real time, newer systems no doubt read even more activities such as time of day, GPS positioning, and likely blue-tooth activity.
The Ins company reader is likely hoovering up all of the data that they can, using the necessary parts for determining your discount (if any) and selling the whatever data they can to whoever might want to buy it.
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With just a cheap ODBII reader bought from Costco, you can glean a lot of information from events that trip the check engine light- example: speed, engine rpm, ambient temperature, barometric pressure, etc... This was just a snapshot of a moment in time, the OBDII system monitors all of this data in real time, newer systems no doubt read even more activities such as time of day, GPS positioning, and likely blue-tooth activity.
But dealing with manufacturer-specific (or in some cases model-specific, as there's nothing preventing Chevy from using any unused PID for one thing on one model and something entirely different on another) PIDs is a PITA when you want a standardized log of several thousand cars. Not only do you have to know where to look across several different configurations, but you have to know how to convert the raw data from each one, then you have to account for all the ones that don't send a particular reading, update it at odd intervals or whatever.
The Ins company reader is likely hoovering up all of the data that they can, using the necessary parts for determining your discount (if any) and selling the whatever data they can to whoever might want to buy it.
Doubtful; remember they're also having to pay to transfer all that data. Even at bulk cell rates, there's going to be a big difference between a couple PIDs of 2-6 bytes each per car per update and the hundreds just in the official OBDII standard. Throw in the custom PIDs that could be several dozen bytes each and you're transferring orders of magnitude more data.
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Regarding the braking. At first glance one would say they shouldn't ding you for braking events that aren't your fault (car cuts you off). From the perspective of an insurer though, if you're carrying un/underinsured motorist coverage or are in a no-fault state, they don't care:
If you have that coverage or are in such a state, if you have to brake sharply alot whether it's your fault or not, you're a higher risk for the insurance company than someone that didn't have to, thus less of a discount.
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I had one of those Snapshot sensors from Progressive on my truck a couple of years ago. Was almost to the end of the 2 or 3 month monitoring period and had a 30% discount just about cinched.
We had a huge snowstorm. 2WD pickup in deep wet snow. Twice that weekend, I spun the tires when I got stuck; the sensor said I accelerated from 0 to 80 mph and back to zero in a second or two. Rather than filter those physically-impossible readings out as noise, their software gave them extra weight and wiped-out most of my discount.
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If you have that coverage or are in such a state, if you have to brake sharply alot whether it's your fault or not, you're a higher risk for the insurance company than someone that didn't have to, thus less of a discount.
Much lower risk, though, than the person who should have braked but didn't, thus avoiding the collision purely by luck. Eventually, luck runs out.
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Rather than filter those physically-impossible readings out as noise, their software gave them extra weight and wiped-out most of my discount.
Well, to be fair, hooking JATO rockets to your truck then slamming it into a wall to stop(somehow without contacting the insurance company for repairs...) isn't a very safe activity. :old:
Much lower risk, though, than the person who should have braked but didn't, thus avoiding the collision purely by luck. Eventually, luck runs out.
Exactly. They'll get into an accident and have their insurance rates raised that way.
The measurements aren't perfect. Doesn't mean that they aren't useful to the insurance companies - through behavior modification if nothing else.
Remember, braking isn't bad, it's hard/extreme braking. And you can still have quite a few of them and still get a discount.
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I had one of those Snapshot sensors from Progressive on my truck a couple of years ago. Was almost to the end of the 2 or 3 month monitoring period and had a 30% discount just about cinched.
We had a huge snowstorm. 2WD pickup in deep wet snow. Twice that weekend, I spun the tires when I got stuck; the sensor said I accelerated from 0 to 80 mph and back to zero in a second or two. Rather than filter those physically-impossible readings out as noise, their software gave them extra weight and wiped-out most of my discount.
[Bean counting devils advocate.]
While physically impossible, still higher risk than someone who sat at home sipping hot cocoa instead of venturing forth into said snow. [/Bean counting devils advocate.]
Which, again, why I won't willingly put one of the damn things on my car.
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Exactly. They'll get into an accident and have their insurance rates raised that way.
Raising the rates after the claim sort of defeats the purpose of all the observation and prediction attempts.
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I'm not exactly sure why any gun owners would consider progressive or geico- regardless of lower rates or 'money saving gimmicks.'
Both insurance companies have and continue to fund far left and anti-gun causes.
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I'm not exactly sure why any gun owners would consider progressive or geico- regardless of lower rates or 'money saving gimmicks.'
Both insurance companies have and continue to fund far left and anti-gun causes.
Most insurance companies have; those two are just more visible because they're bigger.
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I should try one of these in my GTR where I can easily get 20mhp/s acceleration events, 25+mph/s braking events, and 1+g laterals. Do a few of those at 3am, and I bet I could raise some eyebrows :)
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zxcvbob remarked,
We had a huge snowstorm. 2WD pickup in deep wet snow. Twice that weekend, I spun the tires when I got stuck; the sensor said I accelerated from 0 to 80 mph and back to zero in a second or two. Rather than filter those physically-impossible readings out as noise, their software gave them extra weight and wiped-out most of my discount.
Good point --I have to remember that. My six-month "monitored" period ends in November, but most of that period is through summer driving. I can think of a couple of winter instances where I spun all four wheels, and I like to practice braking on snow just for skill enhancement.
Firethorn said,
Exactly. They'll get into an accident and have their insurance rates raised that way.
Car insurance is nothing but a very expensive savings account anyhow.
brimic noted,
I'm not exactly sure why any gun owners would consider progressive or geico- regardless of lower rates or 'money saving gimmicks.'
Both insurance companies have and continue to fund far left and anti-gun causes.
It's real difficult nowadays to limit your dealing to non-leftist companies, except for the real rabid ones like Ben and Jerry's and Progressive. (See REF.)
And many companies contribute "all around" anyhow, to both sides of issues and candidacies. The world ain't perfect.
birdman offered,
I should try one of these in my GTR where I can easily get 20mhp/s acceleration events, 25+mph/s braking events, and 1+g laterals. Do a few of those at 3am, and I bet I could raise some eyebrows Smiley
D-minus on "Comportment" and "Plays well with others." :rofl:
Terry, 230RN
REF (Read 'em and weep):
http://www.2acheck.com/the-boycott-list/nras-list-of-antis/
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END OF STORY
I decided to remove the nannybox a couple of days ago. I was stunned to find that after a shopping trip, which involved maneuvering around four separate parking lots, pulling over to let an emergency vehicle by, and other non-threatening, not-aggressive normal driving actions, I had a bunch of "aggressive driving" dings in 17 miles of driving.
Hey, honey, guess what? I'm about the least aggressive driver there is, especially since I got my CCW ten years ago. (I didn't mention this in my e-mail to the insurance company, but it's true.)
Anyhow, I e-mailed them politely describing the problem and inquiring whether their instrument was out of calibration or their established thresholds were too low to reflect any kind of reality.
They just said to send it back.
Terry
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Did they say what the triggering events were?
BTW, I can see where monitoring these things could be a useful tool to identify aggressive driving. My concern is whether or not they check for a correlation between good drivers using the data, and good drivers using the old fashion metrics such as lack of crashes. As an example, a driver who runs red lights because they would require heavy braking may get away with it for years, but that would never show on the data.
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No, not from a technical standpoint, like how much cornering is bad. I figured out the 7mph/sec braking threshold because they did give the numbers there. I didn't look in detail to see if there were any numbers on cornering (in parking lots, as I said) because I just looked at the total number of events and decided that was it and pulled the plug, as it were. On a followup phone call they gave me the phone number of the tech department of the nannybox maker. I'm thinking how best to approach that from a technical standpoint*. I.e., how did they arrive at those threshold levels? By putting the boxes in the cars of the proverbial little old ladies from Pasadena and recording their driving habits?
On Sundays.
To church.
And how about slowing down on hills? There's a couple of mild hills around here where my cruise control won't hold the car back from 35 mph by mere compression from my tiny little engine, so I downshift to a lower gear instead of riding the brakes to allow it to control the speed. So there's a slight downshifting transmission braking action event at that point which I spotted by correlation with the time. And since it's downhill, if they have accelerometers in the box, that would make it look worse by adding the sine of the hill angle times gee to the braking deceleration.
See, another question for their tech department.
No kidding, on testing and correlating incidents like that, I think if you really kept off their "event" thresholds, you'd probably cause accidents. I'm sure you've seen drivers like that.
Again, no kidding, I'm a pretty smooth driver and most certainly not aggressive, and I don't want those "aggressive driving" dings on anybody's records anywhere.
I didn't think the customer service rep at the insurance company would know anything about the tech details of the box, like about the 7mph/sec braking threshold and she didn't, so she gave me the nannybox company's tech number.
My paranoia neurons are thinking that maybe they set the thresholds so low so the company can deny coverage in case of accident: "You had 17 'aggressive driving' incidents, so it must have been your fault" or some such. Look, I laugh at my own statement haha> :rofl:
Yeah, way out there, but...
Terry
*Or I may just say pisonit and fugedaboudit.
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I wonder how the nanny box would interpret a 4x4 being driven over something like Black Bear Pass ???
=D
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BTW, I can see where monitoring these things could be a useful tool to identify aggressive driving. My concern is whether or not they check for a correlation between good drivers using the data, and good drivers using the old fashion metrics such as lack of crashes. As an example, a driver who runs red lights because they would require heavy braking may get away with it for years, but that would never show on the data.
This. AFAICT, the only criterion for "aggressive driving" is braking more than 7mi/h/sec. That's really not all that aggressive, and doesn't appear to consider starting speed. i.e. stopping in less than one second from an initial speed of 8mi/h because you were driving extremely defensively past the playground when a ball rolled out in the street still gets you dinged. Running over the kid chasing the ball to avoid nailing the brakes only costs you if you get caught.
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This. AFAICT, the only criterion for "aggressive driving" is braking more than 7mi/h/sec.
That's probably why Allstate doesn't call it 'aggressive driving', instead a much more restrained 'hard braking' or 'extreme braking' event. The more events, the higher your insurance cost. They also outright rate you on driving distances modified by driving time(really late at night costs more than during the day) and speeds above 80mph.
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Well, that 7 MPH/sec was the only one I actually calculated from the numbers given.
When I got my latest report and saw all the "aggressive driving" dings, I said the heck with it and didn't bother to go into the numerical details. I just compared their recorded times with what I was actually doing in the car at those times.
They were almost all parking lot maneuvering, where hard turns are necessary (even at low speed) to find and slip into a space. That particular day all the handicapped spots were taken and I had to (carefully!) cruise around a bit to find a spot closer to the store. Oh, and I got gas at their station in the same parking lot... which took more maneuvering and circling around until a pump on my gas tank's side of the car opened up.
In addition, I made a few more stops at other parking lots, again with the attendant maneuvering.
There was also one on the road, where I had to pull over to let an emergency vehicle pass.
As I said, I don't know how they arrived at their criteria for the various "events," but they do not seem to conform to normal safe driving techniques.
Like I've bragged before (knock wood/throw salt over my shoulder) I've gone for much more than 25 years with only one ticket (missing front license plate and it doesn't even appear on my record) and got rear-ended at a stop sign by some yahoo who was on the phone and driving his girl friend's car. Guess what his excuse to the cops was... "I didn't expect him to actually stop."
:rofl:
In addition, I drove a cab for more than a year with only one not-my-fault minor incident.
I also drove motorcycles for a number of years and I sure learned defensive driving from that two-wheeler experience. (No tickets there, either.)
As I've often said, about 25 years ago I learned to drive, as opposed to merely operate a vehicle.
There's just something really goofy about their criteria, period.
Terry, 230RN
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They were almost all parking lot maneuvering, where hard turns are necessary (even at low speed) to find and slip into a space. That particular day all the handicapped spots were taken and I had to (carefully!) cruise around a bit to find a spot closer to the store. Oh, and I got gas at their station in the same parking lot... which took more maneuvering and circling around until a pump on my gas tank's side of the car opened up.
In addition, I made a few more stops at other parking lots, again with the attendant maneuvering.
That's why I was wondering how it would do if you were driving "off road." ;)
I bet they would really have a hissy fit if they saw you backing up on the Black Bear switchbacks :laugh:
We only have one OBD2 vehicle (out of five) and I am really thinking about trading it off for something older. We almost traded it for the jeep, but decided to hang onto it a while longer just for the better gas mileage. But we don't drive the car anymore unless we're going to leave the local area and get out on the highway.
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As I said, I don't know how they arrived at their criteria for the various "events," but they do not seem to conform to normal safe driving techniques.
Either they're running their program different than Allstate, or there's something seriously wrong with their monitor, or you're not presenting your story well and braking severely harder than expected.
Because my monitor doesn't trip on turns at all, and at normal parking lot speeds, shouldn't trip at all.
In my truck, I have to brake noticeably hard to trigger an event. I average ONE event about every 3rd trip.
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Doea anyone make an app that mimics a nannybox so people can "test" their driving before actually committing to one of the damn things?
Brad
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Doea anyone make an app that mimics a nannybox so people can "test" their driving before actually committing to one of the damn things?
Brad
Why? I got a flat 7% discount just for signing up, even before they had any driving data on me!
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Firethorn offered:
Either they're running their program different than Allstate, or there's something seriously wrong with their monitor, or you're not presenting your story well and braking severely harder than expected.
That's why, in my e-mail to them, I mentioned that it might be out of calibration. On the "presentation" aspect, I'm telling it like it is... and I fit in well with drivers around me, so maybe, but I don't think so.
Brad Johnson asked,
Does anyone make an app that mimics a nannybox so people can "test" their driving before actually committing to one of the damn things?
KD5NRH had some possible insights on that in an earlier post. *
Firethorn then remarked,
Why? I got a flat 7% discount just for signing up, even before they had any driving data on me!
Well, I did, too, 10%, but if my normal provably safe driving results in being incorrectly or unfairly tagged as "aggressive," on anybody's records anywhere, I don't like it.
Terry
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That's why, in my e-mail to them I mentioned that it might be out of calibration. On the "presentation" aspect, I'm telling it like it is... and I fit in well with drivers around me, so maybe, but I don't think so.
Like I said earlier, Allstate doesn't mark anything as 'aggressive'. Merely 'hard' and 'extreme' braking events.
I'm also reminded of the statistics that 80% of drivers consider themselves in the top 50%.
I want self-driving cars. Would help you if you're handicapped: Unload right by the doors, vehicle goes off and parks itself, you call it back using a cell phone or something on your way out.