Your car could soon start cutting off your phone calls, silencing the radio and monitoring the weather via intelligent windscreen wipers as insurers step up their hi-tech efforts to turn us into better drivers and cut the number of accidents.
Every driver in Britain could be monitored by their insurer’s tracking technology within the next decade, experts have predicted. Those who refuse could face higher premiums or be denied cover altogether.
So-called “black box” or “telematics” technology is becoming more popular because it enables good drivers to get discounts on their insurance. The boxes are especially favoured by young drivers, who would often pay far more under conventional underwriting.
More than 300,000 cars are fitted with the devices, which track speed, braking, steering and mileage to help an insurer set premiums.
Monitoring your texts
Although insurers do not currently spy on mobile phone use, future technology could monitor every aspect of bad driver behaviour, including the sending of text messages.
Drivers who have telematics insurance either have a small black box fitted inside the car or download a mobile app. The app can work out whether the car is in motion and even whether the phone is in a cradle, so the technology is there to tell whether the driver is texting at the wheel or making a call without being hands-free.
Julie Daniels of comparethemarket.com, the price comparison service, said: “The technology can track literally anything that is in the car – it just depends on what data the insurer wants to analyse. The number of text messages a driver sends while behind the wheel can be monitored, which insurers could use against a driver who frequently texts.”
Silencing the radio and mobile phones
One of the biggest causes of road accidents is the driver being distracted, either by a passenger or by an electronic device.
Some insurers are understood to be interested in the black box tracking the sound of all the electronic devices in the car, including the radio.
Andrew Miller, a research director at Thatcham, the motor insurers’ research centre, said future black boxes could be equipped with devices that would disconnect in-car phone calls and switch off sound systems above certain speeds.
“For insurers safety is key, so it would make sense to reward drivers who have this sort of technology in place,” Mr Miller said.
Some such devices have already arrived. Technology from Ford’s “MyKey” system can reduce the volume of the radio.
Monitoring the weight of the car
Car insurance fraud adds to everyone’s premium. One of the fraudsters’ most common tricks is to cause intentional accidents and then claim that the car was full of passengers, all of whom suffered whiplash injury, when in reality the driver was the only occupant.
To detect these false claims, technology could be built into the black box that tracks the weight of the car, according to Charlotte Halkett of Insurethebox, a leading telematics insurer. “Fraud is a major problem, so if this is introduced widely across the insurance industry it could help reduce everyone’s insurance costs,” she said.
Monitoring when the car is used
Some insurers’ black boxes already record the time of day when the car is used, but this is expected to become more common in the coming years.
Drivers who avoid the most dangerous times of day – between 11pm and 6am – can secure lower premiums.
Such policies are offered by iKube and Autosaint, which both “fine” drivers who break the 11pm curfew £100 a time.
Tracking the weather
Experts claim the black box is clever enough to track the weather by monitoring the windscreen wipers.
“The box could track local weather patterns to work out whether a person regularly travels in adverse weather conditions,” Ms Halkett said. “The technology could be built for this to happen if insurers want the data.”
Voluntary Self Monitoring App
(NZ Herald 2 June 2015)
When Rob Hekes best mates find out he's "New Zealand's safest driver" they're going to rib him. Mr Heke's Holden-driving mates already call him a "nana driver".
Mr Heke, a forensics expert from Hamilton, received a call from Tower Insurance saying that his SmartDriver app results for the previous 12 months made him New Zealand's best driver.
When he was younger, Mr Heke loved to impress his mates with the acceleration power of his beloved sports cars.
"Was I a good driver? Probably not," he says.
He did, however, heed the words of his driving coach father, who said passengers falling asleep was the sign of a good driver.
Mr Heke, who now drives a Volkswagen Touran, says his driving style changed when the first of three sons, Zion, was born.
"When babies are brand new you think they're breakable like an egg. In our first drive I was so slow turning corners and going around roundabouts."
When Tower started SmartDriver, Mr Heke was keen to try it to learn a bit more about his driving patterns.
More than 50,000 people have downloaded it the app, which collects basic driving information, such as trip duration, location, distance travelled, braking and acceleration.
After 150km the app builds an understanding of driving behaviour and risk. About half the people who complete 150km using the app have been able to claim a discount.
In the early weeks it showed that Mr Heke was accelerating too fast and braking too hard.
That, and the feedback the app gives about fuel savings, was enough to change the 36-year-old's habits.
More than a few app users who have not qualified for a discount have complained, thinking they were better drivers than they actually are.
However Mark Savage, general manager of customer proposition at Tower, says stastistically you're more likely to have an accident if you accelerate fast and brake hard.
Mr Heke's 8.8/10 score meant he received a 20 per cent discount on his vehicle insurance premium.
Driver Monitoring
CAMERAS that monitor a driver’s gaze and sound an alarm if they are looking at a phone or falling asleep could be a legal safety requirement in new cars within a few years, it was claimed this weekend.
European Commission officials are preparing a raft of new safety proposals for car manufacturers and are expected to include measures to cut the number of accidents caused by drivers who are distracted or tired. Experts this weekend predicted that the measures, due to be unveiled next month, could be among the most significant safety advances since manufacturers began fitting airbags in the early 1990s.
A landmark report compiled for the commission by Britain’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) found that technology which recognises when a driver is distracted or drowsy is now “cost effective” and can be included in future EU safety regulations. The 470-page report said such technology typically involved cameras directed at the eye, face and head of a driver to detect inattention and there was “clear evidence” of its effectiveness.
Cars in the future could sound an alarm or automatically slow down or stop if the driver was not focused on the road, or even flash hazard lights to warn other motorists, the report states.
As many as half a million people a year are using their mobile phones at the wheel, a Department for Transport study has indicated, and there has been a 41% rise in accidents linked to drivers using their phones — from 349 in 2010 to 492 last year. Fatigue was a contributory factor in 2,046 accidents last year — up 16% on 1,766 crashes in 2010.
Richard Cuerden, chief scientist at TRL, said rules forcing manufacturers to fit devices to monitor driver distraction and tiredness “would really work — it really is cost beneficial. “We are quite excited about it — we think this is a big deal. If we want to keep seeing road casualties reduced and if we don’t want to see the horrendous stories we see happen . . . we have got to put it in every vehicle.”
The commission is expected to make its recommendations to the European parliament early in the new year and new rules could be introduced in about five years. They would apply only to new vehicles, but Cuerden said: “The average age of a car in Europe is probably about seven years, so we could get this into the fleet in big numbers pretty quickly.”
Volvo has already developed a dashboard camera, less than 1in in diameter ,that monitors a driver’s gaze and whether his or her eyelids are closing, while Ford’s driver-alert system evaluates “vigilance levels” by monitoring the vehicle’s position relative to lane markings using a forward-facing and windscreen-mounted camera.
A spokeswoman for the commission said no decision had yet been taken on whether distraction or drowsiness monitoring should be made mandatory. She said: “Technologies are becoming available on the market now and we will have to assess their technical capabilities.”
LT 14 March 2016
The number of drivers choosing Big Brother-style technology to reduce their car insurance has soared by 40 per cent in 12 months, figures show.
Insurers usually offer to cut premiums for motorists who agree to install telematics systems because they give information about driving habits and make it easier to find out who was to blame in the event of a crash.
A study by the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (Biba) suggests that the GPS-style tracking devices can lead to savings of up to 25 per cent. They are particularly popular among drivers in their late teens and early-20s who face the highest insurance costs.
The popularity of the devices will alarm civil liberties groups that claim they are a breach of motorists’ privacy. Graeme Trudgill, executive director at Biba, said: “Industry statistics show there is a 40 per cent drop in crash risk when a new driver has a telematics policy. The equipment also helps reduce theft claims, many doubling as vehicle tracker devices.”
Figures showed that there are almost 455,000 live telematics policies compared with 323,000 in December 2014. The technology usually uses hardwired “black boxes” to monitor driving and create a risk profile, with the safest drivers getting the biggest discount.