Car insurance tracking devices should be banned

Car insurance tracking devices are a public menace, and they do more harm than good.

I’ve railed on and on about how much I hate other drivers. In fact, I’ve done not one, not two, not three, but four whole articles about how much I hate other drivers. Oh wait, forgot about the truckers, so I guess I’ve actually done five.

But because these assholes are never done making my commutes miserable, I’m never done ranting about them. We’re reaching the point where I could start an entirely separate site for my road rage posts.

Car insurance prices are currently somewhere between anal rape and taking a sledge hammer to your balls. As I’ve already talked about, these insurance companies specialize in finding new and creative ways to rip you off.

Not content with just charging customers extra for silly things like living with other people, a lot of car insurance companies have taken to convincing customers to install telematic devices in their cars to monitor their driving habits and “save money”. These devices track things like speed, braking, distance, and a whole bunch of other shit that some car insurance company con artist somewhere can use to justify arbitrarily hiking your rates.

I fucking hate these things so much.

I don’t even have one in my car. Progressive kept trying to push it on me, and I adamantly refused. My current insurance agent thankfully recommends against them, and Travelers doesn’t seem to be as pushy as Progressive was.

My hate for these things doesn’t come from having one myself, it comes from all the people who do have them. I hate car insurance tracking devices because they make dumb drivers even dumber.

Time and time again I’ll be cruising down the highway doing 85 when I see the car in front of me suddenly hammer their brakes for no reason. There’s not another car anywhere near them, but here they are smashing their foot down on the brake pedal like they’re fucking River Stomp. And 9 out of 10 times, it’s because they have one of those damn insurance boxes pinging away in their car if they go over 80. So now I’m forced to slow down or pass you on the right because you wanted to save a couple of bucks on your car insurance.

I should clarify my driving habits here. Yes, I speed. I’m the guy in the left lane doing 90 MPH. No, I’m not ping-ponging in and out of traffic cutting people off. If there’s a stretch of road in front of me, I’m going as fast as I can while safely controlling my car. I don’t tailgate, I always try to maintain a following distance of two to three cars between myself and the car in front of me. Driving fast doesn’t necessarily mean not driving safely, and I’m not sure why everyone acts like it does.

Car insurance tracking devices have been around for a while, but it seems like they’re becoming a lot more commonplace now, probably because you can just use them as an app on your phone. This shit is creating roadways full of pussies who drive like turtles.

I’m not attacking people who choose not to speed. If you’re not confident enough to drive at high speeds, I’d rather you didn’t. All I’m asking is that if I’m in the left lane doing 85-90 you don’t dawdle over from the middle or right lane then start smashing your brakes because you got up to 83 and you’ll get penalized by your stupid insurance box. I also ask that you don’t try to merge onto the highway doing under 30 when oncoming traffic is doing at least 70. Yes, I know the posted speed limit says 45 MPH. I also know that this is Philly, and nobody is actually following that. Except for your turtle ass with your bullshit box.

Those tracking devices don’t even actually save you money in the long run anyway, no matter how slow you drive. My friend has Progressive Snapshot, and I absolutely hate riding with him anywhere because it forces him to drive like the biggest fucking retard on the planet. This shit penalizes him for anything and everything. Didn’t sit at the stop sign for a full three seconds? Higher premium. Passed someone on I95 a little too fast? Higher premium. Progressive Snapshit even penalizes him for driving before 6 AM, because according to the rep the majority of people out driving at that hour are drunk drivers or sleep deprived. What the fuck? How is this legal?! So according to Progressive you have to work a 9-5 and lock yourself inside every night like it’s the purge? Fuck that.

My friend obeys posted speed limits to the exact number, stops a full three seconds at all stop signs, and only hard brakes if someone cuts him off or walks out in front of him, and Progressive still says he’s an aggressive driver and jacks his rates up. When he tried to drop Snapshot the rep gave him a hard time and implied his rates would go up further. I think Progressive reps receive training from the Mafia or something. I recommended my friend to my insurance agent, so hopefully he gets off his lazy ass and switches soon.

Car insurance tracking devices are not only more hassle than they’re worth, they’re also a danger to drivers. Aside from the obvious issue of driving too slow and not keeping up with the flow of traffic, they’re also a distraction. Drivers become so worried about their speed that they’re paying more attention to their speedometer and less attention to the road. Not to mention the boxes that make actual noises when they determine that you’re being “unsafe”. If I had one of these things in my car I’d be a nervous wreck, and I’d probably end up in a wreck trying to keep it from going off for every little dumb thing. If insurance companies ever make these things a requirement I’m driving uninsured. I’ll risk the penalties at that point, it’s less stressful than having my insurance company breathing down my neck every time I start my car.

This shit isn’t about safe driving, it’s about squeezing more money out of customers. Fuck car insurance companies. Supposedly the government heavily regulates car insurance, but clearly someone isn’t paying attention to these tracking devices. It’s not even a privacy issue as much as it is companies like Progressive finding yet another way to rip us off while causing a road hazard on top of that.

Shout-out to the car insurance companies, who are true innovators in scamming consumers.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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