smarbox insurance !!
Discussion
okie592 said:
so you have never done 31 in a 30 ever ever ever?
Nope, my speedo stays dead on the big red 30 mark, which is actually about 27mph 
But legally you are allowed to do 33. But you should not have the attitude that it's OK to break the limit through these roads, even if every other moron does it. When I drive through my village, 90% of the time, I either get some idiot racing up behind me doing 40-45 (a lot of the time, that's the speed they've been going on the 60 roads too), or I see some idiot racing off infront of me (a lot of the time when I've caught them up on the 60 roads because they've been doing 40-45).
Gps signals fluctuate from time to time and you need at least 3 satellites to get an accurate(ish) speed and location from them. This doesn't pick up instantly so are you uninsured for the 1st 5 minutes of every drive?
Gps signal also fudges up sometimes as well, my sat nav has showed that I'm no longer on the motorway I'm actually driving through the woods at 70mph loads. Would I get fined for that? Even though it's the gps system at fault?
There are far too many things to go wrong with this system for it to hold up in any argument. I'm pretty sure you could argue out most of the proposed fines down to dodgy gps/signal.
Gps signal also fudges up sometimes as well, my sat nav has showed that I'm no longer on the motorway I'm actually driving through the woods at 70mph loads. Would I get fined for that? Even though it's the gps system at fault?
There are far too many things to go wrong with this system for it to hold up in any argument. I'm pretty sure you could argue out most of the proposed fines down to dodgy gps/signal.
Trackside Junior said:
Nope, my speedo stays dead on the big red 30 mark, which is actually about 27mph But legally you are allowed to do 33. But you should not have the attitude that it's OK to break the limit through these roads, even if every other moron does it.
When I drive through my village, 90% of the time, I either get some idiot racing up behind me doing 40-45 (a lot of the time, that's the speed they've been going on the 60 roads too), or I see some idiot racing off infront of me (a lot of the time when I've caught them up on the 60 roads because they've been doing 40-45).
I fecking hate that. I wouldn't mind, but you actually know that your speedo overreads, but still you refuse to go above 27mph? But legally you are allowed to do 33. But you should not have the attitude that it's OK to break the limit through these roads, even if every other moron does it. When I drive through my village, 90% of the time, I either get some idiot racing up behind me doing 40-45 (a lot of the time, that's the speed they've been going on the 60 roads too), or I see some idiot racing off infront of me (a lot of the time when I've caught them up on the 60 roads because they've been doing 40-45).
There are many roads, or days/conditions on other roads, where I would be doing 15 - 20 in a 30, but there are also plenty of 30mph roads, on normal days, where I want to be using up all of my 30mph allowance, not being stuck behind some doofus nannying along at 25mph.
An indicated 32 - 33 in a 30 is about right as far as I'm concerned. That's allowing for speedo overreading, and allowing for the fact that even an actual 32mph is close enough to 30 as it needs to be IMO. It's not 35, nor 40..
hairykrishna said:
Mark_Karting said:
I asked this, apparently there is a system to tell them when the box has had a problem or has been tampered with and it voids the policy until it comes back online as far as I was explained 
Surely it has to tell you, somehow, that you're policies suddenly invalid? I mean it's probably tempting with one of these things to buy a 50 quid GPS jammer but there must be some mechanism to account for it losing signal occasionally in a legitimate way. Are you uninsured in tunnels?Of course if they inspect the box and find it works perfectly then I imagine they could cancel your policy formally, and we all know that little box that says "Assumptions: you have never had an insurance policy cancelled or special terms imposed" when you get a quote - say goodbye to getting cover again.
Broadening out this debate, it was expensive enough for me - or rather my dad! - to insure me to drive my mum's 1.2 Starlet back in the day, with how premiums have risen over the past few years I can't imagine how much the average new driver would have to pay even the dullest car these days. It occurs to me that these Smartboxes are the answer, in that theoretically they 'keep you right'. The technology should be extended though that you only pay for what you use. So not so much a limited mileage policy, but a policy that literally, depending on where and how you drive, you pay more or less. So going for a spin a 3am might cost more or less than driving to work at 8am, depending on the risk. This could obviously be extended up the ladder - for example I pay a fair amount to insure my car, but over and above covering for potential theft, it spends 95% of its time sitting in my driveway or garage.
Another solution is that it occurs to me that young drivers, blokes in particular, quite often seem to have accidents when driving with others in the car. Could a policy block the driver for having more than one passenger at a time? Similarly, could the smartbox be used to not just monitor, but regulate the car's performance - for example it is limited to only a short burst of speed over say 60mph, so in the event of emergencies it could be used but not consistently driven at an inappropriate speed. Obviously that could be applied to different speed limits according to the conditions the GPS detects.
So perhaps the most insurable young driver car might become a small-engined two-seater with a speedlimiter? Might be better than a Starlet anyway.
Another solution is that it occurs to me that young drivers, blokes in particular, quite often seem to have accidents when driving with others in the car. Could a policy block the driver for having more than one passenger at a time? Similarly, could the smartbox be used to not just monitor, but regulate the car's performance - for example it is limited to only a short burst of speed over say 60mph, so in the event of emergencies it could be used but not consistently driven at an inappropriate speed. Obviously that could be applied to different speed limits according to the conditions the GPS detects.
So perhaps the most insurable young driver car might become a small-engined two-seater with a speedlimiter? Might be better than a Starlet anyway.
carl0s said:
I fecking hate that. I wouldn't mind, but you actually know that your speedo overreads, but still you refuse to go above 27mph?
There are many roads, or days/conditions on other roads, where I would be doing 15 - 20 in a 30, but there are also plenty of 30mph roads, on normal days, where I want to be using up all of my 30mph allowance, not being stuck behind some doofus nannying along at 25mph.
An indicated 32 - 33 in a 30 is about right as far as I'm concerned. That's allowing for speedo overreading, and allowing for the fact that even an actual 32mph is close enough to 30 as it needs to be IMO. It's not 35, nor 40..
Quite frankly, in a village or built up area, does it matter?There are many roads, or days/conditions on other roads, where I would be doing 15 - 20 in a 30, but there are also plenty of 30mph roads, on normal days, where I want to be using up all of my 30mph allowance, not being stuck behind some doofus nannying along at 25mph.
An indicated 32 - 33 in a 30 is about right as far as I'm concerned. That's allowing for speedo overreading, and allowing for the fact that even an actual 32mph is close enough to 30 as it needs to be IMO. It's not 35, nor 40..
I agree that 25 is too low, but if your speedo says 30, then why is that a problem? I think you're just trying to pick an argument and quite frankly I can't be bothered.
It's not like I'm "nannying around" on all the other roads is it? If you were moaning about someone driving at 40 on a 60 road when the road permits 60, if not more, I'd understand why you're so bothered about it, because I hate it, it gets my blood boiling more than most other things, especially when it's a dry day and you could have a really good hoon, but getting annoyed about someone doing the speed limit through a built up area isn't really a valid argument I'm afraid.
I'll agree to an extent that some people don't do 30 on a 30 road, and I'll also agree that on occasion I've been one of them (3 points, 41/30).
Would I want a black box recorder in my car? If the choice was between paying £2k on insurance and more than halving that, and £2k was say 20% of my yearly income, then yes, I probably would, as long as I thought that £800 was a more reasonable premium to be paying.
I think the issue is resistance rather than acceptance to someone watching over you. In any case, if they write to you saying you were braking too hard last Tuesday, write back and tell them you successfully avoided a collision and thank them for their interest.
Would I want a black box recorder in my car? If the choice was between paying £2k on insurance and more than halving that, and £2k was say 20% of my yearly income, then yes, I probably would, as long as I thought that £800 was a more reasonable premium to be paying.
I think the issue is resistance rather than acceptance to someone watching over you. In any case, if they write to you saying you were braking too hard last Tuesday, write back and tell them you successfully avoided a collision and thank them for their interest.
davepoth said:
Hypothetically speaking, is there any idea of what would happen if the GPS signal got jammed?
I'd imagine that GPS is only part of the sensor system used by these devices so, even if the GPS became unavailable, the unit would probably continue to log outputs from various embedded accelerometers and G-meters.Imagine if a pattern developed where the GPS would go offline and then the device immediately began to record erratic results from the other sensors, I'm sure the insurance company wouldn't have a clue what was going on - honest!
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff