
What if Insurers Didn't Pay for Crashes Caused by Texting? - FluidDjango
http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/what-if-insurers-didnt-pay-for-crashes-caused-by-texting/
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bryanh
People would lie and say they weren't texting. Premiums would increase. The
end.

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lmkg
Unless the insurance companies can get hold of phone records, and find time
stamps of texting activity. Depending on the phone, there maybe keystroke
logging info available as well.

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politician
"The other person in the car was using it."

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rdtsc
Interestingly enough this would drive for increased surveillance in the name
of safety -- "but airbag deployment sensor didn't register anyone being seated
in the car besides the driver". Isn't data obtained from black-boxes on cars
already used in some court cases to solve disputes about the speed at the time
of crash?

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SatvikBeri
Is anyone's behavior is affected by what their insurance carrier covers? Maybe
1% of people-but that's likely people who are careful enough not to text while
driving in the first place.

This is like shouting to the world "fat people should eat less and exercise
more!"

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Permit
This is the key point, in my opinion. If someone is willing to risk their life
to text while driving, someone is willing to risk financial ruin while
driving. It's even less of an incentive and would change nothing.

In order to have a successful campaign against texting while driving, it must
be made socially and culturally taboo, the way driving drunk is in most
places.

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awda
This is a bad idea. As the article points out, the point of insurance is to
cover this kind of thing.

What insurers _should_ do is steeply jack up rates for first-time crashes when
the driver is doing something irresponsible, and make these consequences
public knowledge. But this isn't the best idea either -- now people with poor
decision making skills get to choose between insurance and {booze, cell
phones, ...}, and the party that loses is the person they hit while driving
uninsured.

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bunderbunder
I suspect what it will really take is a MADD-style campaign to turn public
opinion heavily against using phones while driving. Just zinging people when
they get into a wreck won't modify behavior much; there needs to be a
punishment for actually engaging in the behavior. Doing it with laws won't cut
it either; the people who enforce said laws are some of the worst offenders
when it comes to tinkering with mobile devices while driving, from what I've
seen. (I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's a job requirement.) About the
only mechanism that can really do the job with any sort of consistency is
social pressure.

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bittermang
I've said this before, and I'll restate it again here for relevancy.

We have spent people's entire lives vilifying drunk driving. We haven't had
nearly as much time to demonize texting and driving. Comparatively, it's a
relatively new phenomenon, even if the act of driving while distracted
(cheeseburger, conversation, just plain not paying attention) are not.

I've personally been in the car with someone who was so nervous and
preoccupied with something that was on his mind, he rear ended a guy who was
in front of us plain as day. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't texting, he was just
thinking too much about things that weren't on the road. A lapse in judgement
and observation and SMACK right in to the next guy's bumper.

Education on why it is a terrible, horrible idea to text while driving is
certainty a step in the right direction, though I've always been a believer in
making the punishment fit the crime. Driving while texting and cause an
accident? Take away your ability to send/receive text messages.

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gtb
In Australia the mandatory insurance will cover any third party medical bills.
Any insurance to cover more than that (your medical bill, your property or
third party property) won't pay you in case of negligence (drunk driving,
knowing that the car was road unworthy etc).

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aplusbi
"An accident is an accident"

I don't like this mentality. Is a collision caused by drunk driving really an
accident?

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tptacek
It doesn't matter, because the most important reason you have insurance is to
cover your liability to other people. If you rescind that coverage, you're
screwing over the _other people_.

Obviously, if you harm other people by driving while intoxicated, it should
immediately become sharply (perhaps untenably so) more expensive to insure
you.

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aplusbi
I'm not arguing against insuring negligence, I'm arguing against calling
negligence an accident. It's a neat way of removing culpability. "It was just
an accident!"

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bunderbunder
"An accident is an accident" was being said by the insurance specialist, and
in reference to the insurer's responsibility. In context, it was meant to say
nearly the _opposite_ of what you're inferring - something more along the
lines of, "We can't pick and choose like that." Which is true; doing so would
defeat the whole point of mandatory liability insurance.

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funkah
Out of all the problems our country has with insurance firms, I'm not sure
"they cover too much" is one of them.

