One of the greatest – most pernicious – cons associated with car insurance (beyond people being forced to buy car insurance) is that you will “save money” by having the cost of the insurance you’re forced to buy based on how you drive.
The mistaken assumption being that if you are a “safe” driver then you will pay less. In fact, you will pay more – unless you are an obedient driver. One who always drives the speed limit – no faster. Does not accelerate – or brake – faster, in a manner the insurance mafia deems “aggressive.” One who stops – completely – at every stop sign and signals every time he turns.
Even when there is no one around to see him do it.
That’s how you’ll “save money” . . . if you fall for the con.
Ask anyone who drives commercially as most are already under this regime of electronic monitoring of everything they do behind the wheel – including how long they’re behind the wheel and also when. If it’s late in the evening – or too early in the morning.
If it’s raining. Or snowing.
Anything the company doesn’t like can cost them their job – and all their money.
Elon Musk has the same in mind for you.
In addition to the electric car con, he is getting into the insurance con. Both work together well as the electric car is also the electronic car and thus perfectly suited to monitor – and report – your “safe” driving habits.
Musk says what you’ll be forced to pay him (and all the “five families” that comprise the insurance mafia, who are working hard and in concert to make electronic, real-time driver monitoring mandatory, too) will be based upon a Driver Safety Score.
Can you guess how it will be scored?
In a Tesla, if the car’s electronic “safety” systems clang on – e.g., Forward Collision Warning and Automated Emergency Braking – then you will be dunned for “unsafe” driving. You should know that all new cars – not just Teslas and not just electric cars – have similar “safety” electronics as part of their standard equipment package.
You cannot opt out.
And they can be used to narc you out.
At first blush, this may not seem unreasonable to a reasonable person. It reveals itself to be so when you discover that these “safety” systems are programmed to a hyper-cautious standard that’s the vehicular equivalent of insisting that people who are not sick wear “masks.” If you have not driven a car equipped with such systems you won’t know about this; all you’ve heard is how they . . . keep you “safe.”
You know, like “masks” – and Jabs.
In fact, they get very upset if you drive. That is to say, if you exercise judgment.
Your eyes perceive external data regarding objects fixed and moving in relation to you and your car; your brain judges time and distance – spatial relationships. A safe driver knows he has room to pass right now – or will, in the elaborating moment – because he can perceive that the car on the left of him is slowing gradually while the car ahead is picking up speed, increasing the space available to thread the needle in between.
He can make a rolling judgment about what is developing – as opposed to what statically is – and act in concert with developments.
His eyes – and his senses – can tell him whether a hole is closing. Or opening. Whether the car ahead that is actually stopped or merely slowing – and will be off the road before he gets to where it is now. He can judge how much time he’s got to pull into traffic, given oncoming traffic – and how much acceleration will be necessary to do so, safely.
These are the things that encompass the art and skill of driving – as opposed to meatsacking mindlessly in the left seat, passively following the car ahead like an elephant at the circus following the one in front of him, target-fixated on his rear end.
Electronic “safety” systems can only be programmed within a set of comparatively limited parameters. They lack even the judgment capacity of the circus elephant. They are styled “smart” this and “advanced” that – but in fact, they are just machines and one-size-fits-all, which is bad enough by itself since the “size” they are programmed to fit is that of the fearful galucomic old man, whose eyes can no longer see very well and whose brain is fogged by calcification and incipient dementia.
Which also makes them worse – since the fearful glaucomic old man is also often a very unsafe driver. He brakes suddenly and without cause. He pulls slowly (“safely,” according to the programming) into the path of fast-moving traffic. He stops on ice-slicked hills – because the sign says so – even though conditions warrant maintaining momentum, so as to not slide backward into the cars behind him on that ice-slicked hill. He never attempts to pass – and he never gets out of the way. He drives the speed limit – never faster – and often, slower.
Try to imagine Joe Biden overseeing your driving – or rather, being electronically caned to drive like Joe – and you’ll begin to get the idea.
The insurance mafia loves this regime because it assures a steady – and greater – revenue stream. It is easy to avoid accidents – and claims – by driving safely. It is very difficult to obey every traffic law – especially when to do so would be dangerous and might result in an accident (and a claim).
Tesla consigliere Zachary Kirkhorn says that electronic cars collect “enormous amounts of data to assess the attributes of drivers and whether those attributes correlate with safety.”
What he does not say is who gets to define the meaning of “safe” driving.
It should mean, skilled/attentive driving, evidence for that being a clean record as regards accidents/claims filed against the insured – the sole objective measure of actually unsafe driving. It is difficult to comprehend how a driver who never wrecks can be characterized as “unsafe,” even if he does drive faster than the speed limit and doesn’t stop completely at every stop sign. 
But the insurance mafia has for decades used traffic law infractions – e.g., “speeding” – as the measure of “unsafe” driving. The record of these technical foul infractions used to dun drivers – including drivers who never cause accidents.
Clearly, this is mercenary as well as punitive. Very much of a piece with forcing the not-sick to wear “masks.” The true purpose in both instances being mindless obedience.
In both cases, it is peddled as being about “safety,” but this nonsense ought to set off alarm bells in the minds of people not yet completely conditioned to mindlessly salivate – like Pavlov’s dogs – at the mere mention of that dreadful word.
. . . .
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couldn’t drive my cars? not good…..
Potential Generated Crisis #2: Climate Lockdown
Another generated crisis could be a Climate Lockdown or some sort of lockdown pitched on the idea that we must all work together to stop an impending climate emergency. This could involve banning red meat, banning people from using gasoline-powered machines or vehicles, and banning air travel.
It would involve restricting energy use in general. For the average person, the lockdowns were devastating, while for the NWO psychopaths, lockdowns worked very well indeed. From their perspective, why not continue them using a different excuse?
https://thefreedomarticles.com/crisis-worse-than-covid-coming-potential-generated-crises/
I have a Garmin GPS for my car (since I don’t have or want a smartphone). We call it “Grandma” because of my late grandma’s tendency to side-seat drive, white-knuckle the door handle and nag incessantly whenever anyone would go above 30 mph. I am imagining this nanny system would be similar to this nannycam in my car. It’s constantly warning me about forward collisions I am not even close to having. It also accuses me of running off the road when I have not done so. (I think it wants you exactly centered in the lane or maybe it doesn’t know precisely where the road is.) Once, it even nagged me that traffic was moving when I was waiting at a light and to pay attention and go, already! Unlike the nice helpful voice that aides you on your journey, this is a nagging series of beeps with a flashing message “Forward Collision Warning!!” (I must doubt the logic of this. If I am indeed about to have a forward collision, wouldn’t it be better if I were looking at the object in front of me, as opposed to having my attention diverted by a flashing, beeping device in the windshield?)
The GPS does have lots of nice features. It is linked to satellites, so you get real time info on traffic jams and road construction. New roads and routes are always updated. It gives you options, such as interstate or scenic route. You can search without an address, such as keying in “Tampa Airport.” It warns you of redlight cameras. It records, so if you have a wreck, there’s a video.
But the nicest thing about my GPS is that you can shut all that off and just use it to get directions or even decide not to use it at all on any particular day. It has an off switch. If it gets seriously annoying, you can even chuck it out the window. It’s one of the last technological innovations that was made solely for the user’s benefit and convenience, as opposed to most things now, which monitor us or sell us for someone else’s purposes.
Good citizens, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. After all, they care deeply about our health and well being, as evidenced by how committed they are to taking away that pesky and cumbersome thing called personal responsibility.
Wife and I are still in the process of pulling what little business we have with State Farm. They spend billions to have their name placed EVERYWHERE, give away billions to degenerate sports ballers, and mud shark in almost every commercial, while never lowering premiums.
This make me wish everyone with two brain cells left would up and leave. They would be left with a pool of high risk people who cost more than they are worth, effectively killing them off. Can I say that, Killing them off? Or would that be construed as a death threat. Corporations now having status similar to individuals. I’m sure it won’t be long before organized boycotts and such are treated as death threats.
I would fail the driving scorekeeper simply because I make the decisions. I travel through a 4-way on my way to work that has visibility for a 1/4 mile in al directions. No other cars I don’t stop. Same if for some reason I’m up extra early and I go through traffic lights around town that are red. I’m not sitting there if I can see and go safely. No other cars.
I’m sure the insurance cabal would not approve.
Hi Manse,
Amen! Whenever I head into town from my place, I drive up the road to a four-way stop sign at the crest of the road, where I go right or left onto the main road. One can see in all three of the other directions whether there’s another car coming (or waiting). Sight lines of a quarter mile or so. It would be moronic to stop at the sign – just because there is a sign. Also wasteful – of gas – and wearing, on the clutch. So I roll through and proceed on my way – if the way is clear.
Waiting for the left turn arrow was my breaking point. Oncoming traffic half mile up the road I’m not waiting another 5 minute light cycle. I shout “country driver rules” and hit the gas as The Commander covers her face. On the Harley any light or stop sign is fair game.
Probably playing Copper Roulette as city, sheriff, and state patrol roam the local areas I travel.
A few years back most of the traffic lights would go to flashing red between about midnight and 6 AM; not so anymore. Guess the AGW’s want to be able to write more tickets when they weren’t napping in their cruisers.
I work as the maintenance guy at a private high school (the school I graduated from). We are on the fourth year of our new campus, and this semester for some reason we have been having vehicle accidents on the main entrance driveway. Hadn’t been a problem the other three years we been there.
Including today, where a student t-boned another at the stop sign. The airbags went off for a PARKING lot accident (though it was a good hard hit). There is nothing really weird about the design of it (its kind of normal, like a mall road driveway, you don’t stop on the way in). But yet because of inattentive inexperienced teens and their equally inattentive parents (most likely cell phones were being used) we have had two pretty bad accidents deploying airbags IN A PARKING LOT………. It looked like one of the cars today will likely be totaled out. IN A PARKING LOT with a 10mph hour speed limit.
Imagine how slow cars will have to go to not cause any damage…..they likely will only be a bit faster than a walk……..
Can’t imagine the stupid thing the school will probably try to do to stop it….. It’s like just pay attention and drive….. the school shouldn’t have to do a damn thing about it.
Hi Rich,
As a thought experiment –
Imagine if, tomorrow, everyone with a driver’s license had to pass one simple test to retain it: Successfully get a car with a manual transmission moving from a dead stop on a hill, without stalling or rolling backward down the hill. My bet is at least half and probably closer to two-thirds of all currently licensed drivers would not be able to perform this basic act of driving skill, once required to get a driver’s license.
They’d also have to add “no spinning the wheels” to the test criteria otherwise word would get out how to pass in spectacular fashion! Every teen would want a MT after that. Even my oil swilling 92 zuki sidekick will do a one wheel peel if I romp the gas and dump the clutch a moment later.
As I mentioned before, as a flat lander, it would depend on the hill for me. If it’s the kind of hill I haven’t dealt with in 20 some years well I’m not going to do well. I haven’t driven anywhere with steep slopes since 2005 and then it was in a borrowed AT car being I was thousands of miles from home.
If you can get a car going on the flat using only the clutch you have the ability to start out on all but very steep hills. Just lift the clutch until the rippums drop to an almost chunky idle and hold, you’re now free to swap brake for gas and let ‘er rip. Steep hills require a less than leisurely right foot pivot.
I’ve driven standard exclusively in New Hampshire for about 15 years. Running an auto gets my left leg and right arm confused. The stick becomes second nature.
I know how to do it, but the car will roll back a little. Sometimes only such that I feel it, other times more noticeably. This top gear like test of not rolling back at all I won’t pass. I just don’t get much practice in the flatlands.
I used to be one of those drivers who had to live with saaaaaaaaaaaafety systems installed (truck driver). Oh boy. Once in a great while, for no reason at all except perhaps that I went through an underpass at a weird angle, the collision detection system went off and I had to call our safety office as soon as I stopped. WTF?! Those things are NOT perfect, despite what con-man Musk wants you to believe.
Oh, and another thing – we had electronic logging that had sensors and could detect when the truck was moving. I got dinged once for going about 1 or 2 minutes over my allotted 11 hour drivetime. I literally was pulling into a truck stop to park for the night, and it took me that couple of minutes to park. There is no give and take with electronic systems. If you ask me, they’re a crock of shit.
And I suspect this is why a lot of truck drivers have given up on the profession. Who needs to be nagged 24 hours a day for your entire working life?
Rental VW SUV in 2019, visiting daughter and family in Germany. Drove to their house from the rental place in town, winding two lane road. Thought the steering was defective, kept fighting me in the curves. Finally realized it had lane assist, to me downright dangerous- especially out on the Autobahn passing trucks and it kicked in nudging you left as it sensed the truck on the right.
Yeah that and A.S.S. could be turned off, but each time you started, and then via lengthy scroll and select in the function screen. Lame.
Lol! My insurance company has tried to get me to opt into that bullshit for years! I drive safely just not obediently and I always knew it was a scam!
So true, I can’t stand all the beeping that happens in the new cars, even Tacoma has got the SOS system, which means constant radar tracking permanently on -_-‘ therefore, we just got BRZ which is so much more fun to drive 🙂
Flight is more regulated because the coonts in charge are afraid of victims going Joe Stack on them. Can’t easily erect fences and barriers against a plane. Their multimillion seaside paradise properties would quickly be under seige by falling freezer bags of excrement.
Post intended as a reply to JimH re:automated flight
I love this reply because it’s like a nested riddle! 😁
I’d love to drive a car with a safety score tracker for a week, just to see what it takes to achieve the other endpoint on that scale, could be fun.
“A safe driver knows he has room to pass right now – or will, in the elaborating moment – because he can perceive that the car on the left of him is slowing gradually while the car ahead is picking up speed, increasing the space available to thread the needle in between.”
Never fear. Next year’s model will have that ability. Not that it will be put to that purpose. It will, instead, note that since you are driving the speed “limit” and the car ahead is widening the gap, he is obviously “speeding”, and they know by exactly how much, so the driver can have his driving score automatically dinged, and the insurance mafia notified, possibly a “speeding” citation automatically deducted from his account. If he doesn’t have a bank account linked to his license, no problem. The insurance mafia will happily function as a payday loan firm.
You have been made into a hallway monitor. Peer to peer Kravitzing.
“They are programmed to fit is that of the fearful galucomic old man, whose eyes can no longer see very well and whose brain is fogged by calcification and incipient dementia.” roflmao…. that’s funny!
Yeah I guess some of us old fogey’s [ I’m 73] fit that description but here’s some interesting information about the younger, more fit and with more mental acuity and of course,,, better driving skills.
According to Forbes, the worst drivers based on information from driving records, the age group that encompasses the worst drivers is Millennials. Millennials are those people born mainly in the 1980s.
It all comes down to the bad driving habits this generation has. They tend to have the highest rate of drivers with DUI charges. They also have the distinction of being the most likely to drive recklessly. These drivers tend to run red lights and have high instances of speeding. They also have a high percentage of drivers responsible for car accidents.
[ I have been hit in the rear twice last year by younger drivers while I was stopped at a light. They were texting]
Even more interesting and kind of ironic.
One surprising thing learned from driving records is that one of the groups often blamed for being the worst drivers is actually the best drivers. Baby Boomers have the best driving records of any generation.
They have fewer at-fault accidents and are not as likely to speed or drive under the influence.
Now don’t kill the messenger!
https://www.dawkinslawfirm.com/blog/2020/05/what-age-group-has-the-worst-drivers/
Probably because they (mostly) all learned to drive on a standard transmission, and racked up a lot of time behind the wheel?
As a Gen Xer, I was one of the last generation that learned driving on cars that could be harder to drive. Like manuals or having to set a choke (which actually isn’t hard) on even an automatic.
Combined with very easy to drive cars with those stupid “smart” phones, its actually amazing there aren’t more cell phone wrecks.
Ditto, Rich –
As a fellow Xer, I well remember. In high school, most of us drove the thrashed used cars of the ’80s – which were the tired cars of the ’70s and ’60s. One friend had a Datsun B210 with no reverse (manual). Another an old Ford truck with three on the tree (and a 390 under the hood). VW Beetles – the real ones – were common. All manuals. Some of us gearheads had beat-up ’60s Novas, Chevelles and such. A handful of rich kids had new IROC-Z Camaros and 5.0 Mustangs. But the typical first car of ’80s kids was a car that most current kids would probably be unable to drive. Literally – not able to drive it!
I had a Chevelle……
I am jealous. I wish I had a 1970 SS in my driveway. 🙁
Morning, RG!
I am grateful I still have a totem of my lost youth – my ’76 Trans Am, which I managed to buy when I was 25 back in the ’90s and still have, today. It is an almost time machine. I feel 25 again – as if no time has passed – every time I take it out for a drive. Not only because it’s still the same today as it was back then – but because it doesn’t feel old. Which makes me feel young!
My last 3 series came with the lane keep assist. On top of the turn engine off at stoplight. I hate lane keep assist. What a stupid idea! Surprised people don’t crash with that on. Had to disable it at the dealership just to even test drive. Then disabled the one I bought. A few weeks ago the car underwent an auto update and now each time the ignition is turned on it enables ALL of the assists. So far I have been to busy to try to learn if there is a new way to permanently disable them so each time I get in the car, I hold down a button in the dash that after a couple of seconds deactivates all the assists. The most annoying part? The assholes at BMW require two hands to disable the assists! One to hold down the button at dash and another to turn the little selection wheel at the mid console to ‘select’ which of the assists you want to disable. I swear it is as if the guvment wants to find ways to remind you as often as possible that they own your ass. Sorry for the rant!
What a POS. Any chance it can slip out of park at the top of a large hill and end up wrapped around a tree?
On a funny note, mentioning cars auto updating reminded me of my old bosses early tesla s. He had a charger installed next to the bay door of the loading ramp as wiring a pedistal outside at his normal parking spot was prohibitively expensive (unlike the ludicrous speed option). The other guys and I at the shop could already tell this electric codpiece was going to get in our way daily. Before too long the golfcart locked out while charging for an important update just as our delivery of material arrived on the truck. May he and that muddle s rot in hell.
I block auto updates on computers because they always turn the machine into a pile of sh!t. No way in hell I’d have a car that pulled the same crap.
This is why I don’t want any new vehicles. I can’t stand them. The seatbelt beepers of the past 15 years or so are obnoxious enough. They are easy to override and/or trick.
I’m supposed to get a new pickup for business reasons but I can’t bring myself to do it. Low end models used to be an end around on the safety suite of bullshit, but no more. You can avoid a few things but not enough for me to desire a new ride. I don’t get excited to spend 60 grand to not enjoy the drive.
I drive because I love driving. If I wanted some stupid bitch like Flo driving for me, I’d face diaper and call uber and lyft.
Every article Eric writes makes me love my 21 year old truck that much more.
FJB.
Amen, Mike –
And: FJB….
Let’s go Brandon
Yep. Often, when I drive my 2000 Tacoma on a job site–the land of $70,000 HD pickups–everyone asks why I’m driving it. My simple answer is ‘because I love it’.
It’s not a power house. It’s not fast, but I control the gears and it doesn’t beep at me for anything. No nanny’s at all outside of the seatbelt light which I’ve ignored my whole life on everything.
Same for my 97 Tacoma. The only complaint I have is the volume of the “key in ignition” warning, advertising to all within a 50 yard earshot that I have left my key in the ignition. I thought I had figured out how to disable it by pulling a fuse, but it also turned off my tail lights. Mines 4WD, and it is an amazing beast off road. It even has a button on the dash to turn off the clutch switch so you can start it in gear if your ass is hanging off a cliff.
John,
Pull tbe rubber off of the pin in front of your door threshold. Put a penny inside it. Put it back on. Viola. No more door alarm
People are capable of judgement, some more than others apparently. Computers are not. They record and react. That reaction may be quite complex, but is not judgement. Ones and zeros.
“We discovered your car moved yesterday. We’re sorry, but that will result in an increase in your car insurance premium.”
When I test drove the Honda Ridgeline I was immediately turned off by the red/green LED lighting around the instrument cluster. Red when accelerating, green when coasting. A modern take on the GM fuel economy vacuum gauge from the 1970s. That, along with cylinder deactivation, were enough for me to reject it. Too bad, because they have interesting features not found on anything else.
Now imagine that red/green indicator reporting back to headquarters. “Do you hate the climate Mr Kilowatt?” “Of course not.” “Then why drive with such reckless abandon? Do you not see that the planet is on fire? I’m afraid I have to fine you ten credits for your shameful behavior!”
Buy a first gen pre VCM. Mine has over 200k and still burns NO oil. Everything still works minus factory nav and tpms sensor batteries. It spent 15 years in the salt mines of new england and only now has a rust spot at the rear of a rocker. They’re more expensive now but a steal compared to the 40k+ a new one will cost. Paint still looks great. My only complaint is shes a pig sucking down 20mpg on the highway. I trade the fuel consumption for reliability and utility gladly. Value has almost doubled since I bought it a few years ago due to this bogus car shortage.
‘all new cars – not just Teslas and not just electric cars – have similar “safety” electronics as part of their standard equipment package.’ — eric
Now flight is being automated, so that non-pilots can operate helicopters and even flying cars:
‘On a recent Wednesday afternoon, I flew a helicopter over Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles. The flight was short but remarkable. After all, I am not a pilot.
‘The helicopter was equipped with new Skyryse technology meant to simplify and automate the operation of passenger aircraft. I flew using two Apple iPads and a joystick mounted inside the cockpit, much as I would when flying through the digital space of a video game.’
https://outline.com/6tbCfk
Interestingly, the author observes that ‘regulators are unlikely to approve autonomous flight anytime soon.’
Strange how Tesla gets away with janky ‘self-driving’ on roads, a more complicated place than the sky.
Just because some expert tasks performed by humans can be automated, doesn’t necessarily mean they should be.
The last line of your comment has long been my point of view regarding a LOT of things, not just “expert tasks”. Is it really so hard to turn your thermostat down, or up, when you leave the house or go to bed?
Or do you program it, and then live your life according to your thermostat programming?