RE: Scores on the doors: PH Blog
Discussion
I hate the idea of this big brother thing. All the fun things in life are being taken away.
On a serious note it means I would be penilised for a near miss I had today: I was driving home from visiting family in Brighton with my wife and our 6month old daughter I'm the back. I'd travelled 85 miles and was half a mile from home when a women walking her dog down the lane lost control o the dog which jumped out in front of the car in front of me. For some reason the car in front anchored up rather than swerve round which resulted in me very nearly hitting the car in front- I missed it by about 6inches. I was travelling at the speed lint an a decent distance back ( I always drive extra carefully with my little girl in the car). Unfortunately the car in front only had one brake light
working whic didn't alarm me to the rapid deceleration they were doing.
I was very lucky that I had stopped 30 miles earlier because my little girl needed a feed so I took a 15min nap which meant I felt very sharp and refreshed. It really scared me because it was so close and I had been driving in a calm and decent manner. Now had I had a box fitted my insurance would be going up!
To be honest I'm just pleased I keep the car well maintained (especially the tyres) because I didn't even skid ( partly due to the fact I applied the brakes a little to shift the weight forward before putting the pedal through the floor!) and the ABS kicked in for only the last 10m or so.
Rant over!
On a serious note it means I would be penilised for a near miss I had today: I was driving home from visiting family in Brighton with my wife and our 6month old daughter I'm the back. I'd travelled 85 miles and was half a mile from home when a women walking her dog down the lane lost control o the dog which jumped out in front of the car in front of me. For some reason the car in front anchored up rather than swerve round which resulted in me very nearly hitting the car in front- I missed it by about 6inches. I was travelling at the speed lint an a decent distance back ( I always drive extra carefully with my little girl in the car). Unfortunately the car in front only had one brake light
working whic didn't alarm me to the rapid deceleration they were doing.
I was very lucky that I had stopped 30 miles earlier because my little girl needed a feed so I took a 15min nap which meant I felt very sharp and refreshed. It really scared me because it was so close and I had been driving in a calm and decent manner. Now had I had a box fitted my insurance would be going up!
To be honest I'm just pleased I keep the car well maintained (especially the tyres) because I didn't even skid ( partly due to the fact I applied the brakes a little to shift the weight forward before putting the pedal through the floor!) and the ABS kicked in for only the last 10m or so.
Rant over!
infradig said:
I 'have a friend' who had a taste of this a year ago when a hire company representative called to rebuke him for his enthusiastic velocity in one of their cars. They knew where he'd come from and that he'd driven through a 50 mph contraflow at 48mph(cruise control) but then accelerated to allegedly a speed that alerts a live operator and it was only the fact it then drove normally to the same place it had been parked for the previous week they didn't alert the police that it had been stolen( it was 4am). Apparently any time their cars exceed 1lepton a report is sent to the hire company and someone then decides whether or not to administer a telephone b
king. Armed with this knowledge 'my friend' just set the limiter(it was a Merc) to 99.
They tell you off for being a naughty boy and doing over 100mph? That's pretty funny! Which company is it?king. Armed with this knowledge 'my friend' just set the limiter(it was a Merc) to 99.
Dan- when you're back on the road, how about also getting an assessment from an advanced driving point of view? It'd be interesting to see how the telematics opinion of 'safe' driving compares.
BTW, I have some experience with the limitations of using black boxes in driver education, and my offer of a drive from last year still stands.
BTW, I have some experience with the limitations of using black boxes in driver education, and my offer of a drive from last year still stands.
The fun of driving involves hard acceleration, hard braking and hard cornering. The skill of driving is knowing when and how to do it safely and in a properly maintained car.
That some believe a black box can possibly know the weather, the traffic volumes, how tired you are, what your tyre pressures were checked as, the general condition and ability of your car or any of the other 10,000 variables there must be contibuting to the overall safety rating is laughable.
I like to think of the black box as being a dumb version of the (already dumb) Alistair Stewart, with his cries of "look at this lunacy" whilst watching someone driving normally.
SM
That some believe a black box can possibly know the weather, the traffic volumes, how tired you are, what your tyre pressures were checked as, the general condition and ability of your car or any of the other 10,000 variables there must be contibuting to the overall safety rating is laughable.
I like to think of the black box as being a dumb version of the (already dumb) Alistair Stewart, with his cries of "look at this lunacy" whilst watching someone driving normally.
SM
supermono said:
The fun of driving involves hard acceleration, hard braking and hard cornering. The skill of driving is knowing when and how to do it safely and in a properly maintained car.
That some believe a black box can possibly know the weather, the traffic volumes, how tired you are, what your tyre pressures were checked as, the general condition and ability of your car or any of the other 10,000 variables there must be contibuting to the overall safety rating is laughable.
I like to think of the black box as being a dumb version of the (already dumb) Alistair Stewart, with his cries of "look at this lunacy" whilst watching someone driving normally.
SM
That some believe a black box can possibly know the weather, the traffic volumes, how tired you are, what your tyre pressures were checked as, the general condition and ability of your car or any of the other 10,000 variables there must be contibuting to the overall safety rating is laughable.
I like to think of the black box as being a dumb version of the (already dumb) Alistair Stewart, with his cries of "look at this lunacy" whilst watching someone driving normally.
SM
Yes the same individual who while presenting PCA was done for drink driving, kept the gig some time later done for guess what D&D again,
still gainfully employed as a news reader. 
He's a bloke you can really trust to give you information.In agreement with some others, I think this is potentially the thin end of a very fat wedge 
First it's brought in as an option with the incentive of reducing your insurance, then slowly as cars age and it becomes the norm; non-equipped cars / non-subservient individuals become the minority and are financially penalized until it's too expensive to avoid. Once pretty much everyone has it, it becomes a legal requirement on new vehicles.
Once the hardware's in place it's oh so easy to demand telemetry from every vehicle on the road, filtered to identify those breaking the speed limit (or committing any other often arbitrary "offence" supposedly justifiable on the grounds of road safety) and penalise them accordingly.
Jesus, think how utterly horrible driving would become if you knew the man was literally watching and logging your every moment on the move.
If this seems far-fetched, think how alien and draconian our roads would now look to the 1960's driver - hiding mobile speed vans, Gatsos, average speed cameras, speed bumps, chicanes, ANPR harvesting information about your movements..
The sad thing is I feel that it's only a matter of time before driving ceases to be an enjoyable exercise, and more akin to doing the hoovering or walking round the supermarket - merely a mundane necessity
First it's brought in as an option with the incentive of reducing your insurance, then slowly as cars age and it becomes the norm; non-equipped cars / non-subservient individuals become the minority and are financially penalized until it's too expensive to avoid. Once pretty much everyone has it, it becomes a legal requirement on new vehicles.
Once the hardware's in place it's oh so easy to demand telemetry from every vehicle on the road, filtered to identify those breaking the speed limit (or committing any other often arbitrary "offence" supposedly justifiable on the grounds of road safety) and penalise them accordingly.
Jesus, think how utterly horrible driving would become if you knew the man was literally watching and logging your every moment on the move.
If this seems far-fetched, think how alien and draconian our roads would now look to the 1960's driver - hiding mobile speed vans, Gatsos, average speed cameras, speed bumps, chicanes, ANPR harvesting information about your movements..
The sad thing is I feel that it's only a matter of time before driving ceases to be an enjoyable exercise, and more akin to doing the hoovering or walking round the supermarket - merely a mundane necessity
Edited by Republik1980 on Monday 4th March 22:00
Edited by Republik1980 on Monday 4th March 22:01
Republik1980 said:
In agreement with some others, I think this is potentially the thin end of a very fat wedge
First it's brought in as an option with the incentive of reducing your insurance, then slowly as cars age and it becomes the norm; non-equipped cars / non-subservient individuals become the minority and are financially penalized until it's too expensive to avoid. Once pretty much everyone has it, it becomes a legal requirement on new vehicles.
Once the hardware's in place it's oh so easy to demand telemetry from every vehicle on the road, filtered to identify those breaking the speed limit (or committing any other often arbitrary "offence" supposedly justifiable on the grounds of road safety) and penalise them accordingly.
Jesus, think how utterly horrible driving would become if you knew the man was literally watching and logging your every moment on the move.
If this seems far-fetched, think how alien and draconian our roads would now look to the 1960's driver - hiding mobile speed vans, Gatsos, average speed cameras, speed bumps, chicanes, ANPR harvesting information about your movements..
The sad thing is I feel that it's only a matter of time before driving ceases to be an enjoyable exercise, and more akin to doing the hoovering or walking round the supermarket - merely a mundane necessity
Agreed. This utterly terrifies me. I absolutely love driving... as much as I love playing guitar.First it's brought in as an option with the incentive of reducing your insurance, then slowly as cars age and it becomes the norm; non-equipped cars / non-subservient individuals become the minority and are financially penalized until it's too expensive to avoid. Once pretty much everyone has it, it becomes a legal requirement on new vehicles.
Once the hardware's in place it's oh so easy to demand telemetry from every vehicle on the road, filtered to identify those breaking the speed limit (or committing any other often arbitrary "offence" supposedly justifiable on the grounds of road safety) and penalise them accordingly.
Jesus, think how utterly horrible driving would become if you knew the man was literally watching and logging your every moment on the move.
If this seems far-fetched, think how alien and draconian our roads would now look to the 1960's driver - hiding mobile speed vans, Gatsos, average speed cameras, speed bumps, chicanes, ANPR harvesting information about your movements..
The sad thing is I feel that it's only a matter of time before driving ceases to be an enjoyable exercise, and more akin to doing the hoovering or walking round the supermarket - merely a mundane necessity
Edited by Republik1980 on Monday 4th March 22:00
Edited by Republik1980 on Monday 4th March 22:01
Unfortunately, for many people driving is just a way of getting from one place to another, with as little mechanical understanding & input as possible. Mindless exercise for many.
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