Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Anyone have State Farm Drive Safe?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
In 20 years if we go the direction we have been going, why wouldn't the government just ask all the insurance companies for all of their back records, and why wouldn't insurance companies start pooling their information together to create a record of you?

If it becomes mandatory in 20 years then, well, aren't we just screwed regardless?

I'm not quite sure how my actions as one individual matter. The data from now will be pretty useless in 20 years, at that point the last 6 months of data would be infinitely more accurate.

I do understand the argument that if everybody refuses tracking today then maybe enough pushback can prevent all of this. But I'm selfish and my lone actions don't make much impact so I'll take the discount.

Also, regardless of insurance related tracking, couldn't the government just require that cars automatically report any traffic law violations like speeding, running stop signs, failure so signal lane changes, etc? Technology wise that's totally possible and wouldn't even be very hard for Tesla to do.
 
If it becomes mandatory in 20 years then, well, aren't we just screwed regardless?

I'm not quite sure how my actions as one individual matter. The data from now will be pretty useless in 20 years, at that point the last 6 months of data would be infinitely more accurate.

I do understand the argument that if everybody refuses tracking today then maybe enough pushback can prevent all of this. But I'm selfish and my lone actions don't make much impact so I'll take the discount.

Also, regardless of insurance related tracking, couldn't the government just require that cars automatically report any traffic law violations like speeding, running stop signs, failure so signal lane changes, etc? Technology wise that's totally possible and wouldn't even be very hard for Tesla to do.
Kind of like the argument of "Why should I vote? My individual vote doesn't matter." but if we all thought that way we'd be screwed. I understand your point of view, though.
 
I work in tech, and I am privacy conscious personally so I would never use FB, and I have all google tracking off and manage my app permissions closely.

Regardless of my own personal stance or settings, the argument that "everyone else tracks me so why shouldn't my insurance co!" is not a good one. It's exactly the slippery slope I mentioned. People are becoming more and more numb to losing their privacy.
No it’s quite the reverse. My point was that voluntarily letting the insurance company monitor your driving in exchange for a potentially significant discount is trivial compared to all the other tracking that already exists.
Even if you're not super concerned about privacy there's a big difference between google periodically polling for your location at the moment to target ads (information it does not sell to others), and your insurance company tracking your every drive (and likely every movement even when not driving since location is on at all times), real time speed, stop, turn and braking events in order to charge you less (or more) based on your driving. This data is such a huge attraction for hackers but also the government. Once this information is saved it can be used at anytime. In 20 years if we go the direction we have been going, why wouldn't the government just ask all the insurance companies for all of their back records, and why wouldn't insurance companies start pooling their information together to create a record of you?

Our legal system was not conceived during a time when there could be perfect monitoring of every person every second of the day, and laws were not expected to have perfect compliance by every human every second of every day. If we were all monitored 24/7 every single person in the US could be charged with a crime; whether it be jay walking, rolling a stop sign, speeding, whatever. That's a scary future that people seem to be ready and willing to head towards for a few bucks off their car insurance policy.
Your slippery slope arguments are just that and they undermine your argument as a whole: “If we allow insurance companies to track us then the gubberment is going to put video screens in our bedrooms!” No, it doesn’t automatically follow.

I’m not against privacy but railing against a program based on paranoid dystopian hypotheses doesn’t really cut it for me.
 
No it’s quite the reverse. My point was that voluntarily letting the insurance company monitor your driving in exchange for a potentially significant discount is trivial compared to all the other tracking that already exists.

Your slippery slope arguments are just that and they undermine your argument as a whole: “If we allow insurance companies to track us then the gubberment is going to put video screens in our bedrooms!” No, it doesn’t automatically follow.

I’m not against privacy but railing against a program based on paranoid dystopian hypotheses doesn’t really cut it for me.
It's not trivial. No one said the gubment is going to put video cameras in our bedrooms.

Not sure how it undermines my argument? The slippery slope is that people become more and more comfortable with more tracking therefore there is more tracking. If you asked someone in the 50's (or even 90's!) if you could track their every movement in their car for discount they would likely be horrified. You are no longer horrified because you've been conditioned little by little to accept more tracking. This is the definition of a slippery slope... The more tracking we accept the more tracking that will be done.

I am certainly not a conspiracy theorist in any way, but there is a high likelihood that the more people who accept tracking the more the insurance companies will push it and it will eventually become mandatory. This is how a great many things have worked in the last 20 years. See subscription software for an example. When it came out, everyone laughed at it and said who in the world would want to pay continuously. Little by little people accepted it and now everything is subscription. Rent everything forever and own nothing!
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: fiehlsport
We had it for a short while with our 2007 Civic Hybrid but got rid of it. Why? Because I got dinged for 2 "extreme acceleration events" in 1 week. I don't think the words "extreme acceleration" and Civic Hybrid had ever been used in conjunction before. That POS takes almost 12s to go 0-60 and the dongle thought I was accelerating too quickly LOL.
What insurance company?
 
It's not trivial. No one said the gubment is going to put video cameras in our bedrooms.

Not sure how it undermines my argument? The slippery slope is that people become more and more comfortable with more tracking therefore there is more tracking. If you asked someone in the 50's (or even 90's!) if you could track their every movement in their car for discount they would likely be horrified. You are no longer horrified because you've been conditioned little by little to accept more tracking. This is the definition of a slippery slope... The more tracking we accept the more tracking that will be done.

I am certainly not a conspiracy theorist in any way, but there is a high likelihood that the more people who accept tracking the more the insurance companies will push it and it will eventually become mandatory. This is how a great many things have worked in the last 20 years. See subscription software for an example. When it came out, everyone laughed at it and said who in the world would want to pay continuously. Little by little people accepted it and now everything is subscription. Rent everything forever and own nothing!
A slippery slope argument is one that takes assumes the question will automatically lead to cataclysmic consequences and uses those to argue the point in question, even though the consequences are not automatic or foregone. Just because I agree to let State Farm monitor my driving so I can get a discount doesn’t mean The State is going to track every move and put a video screen in my bedroom.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fiehlsport
We had it for a short while with our 2007 Civic Hybrid but got rid of it. Why? Because I got dinged for 2 "extreme acceleration events" in 1 week. I don't think the words "extreme acceleration" and Civic Hybrid had ever been used in conjunction before. That POS takes almost 12s to go 0-60 and the dongle thought I was accelerating too quickly LOL.

Hahah, yeah it’s super sensitive. I’m not sure how slow chill mode is on a Tesla but chill easily hits the acceleration limits. There are on ramps around here I don’t think you can safely drive with triggering it
 
Hahah, yeah it’s super sensitive. I’m not sure how slow chill mode is on a Tesla but chill easily hits the acceleration limits. There are on ramps around here I don’t think you can safely drive with triggering it
My score isn't perfect, but I still get a discount. The most common trigger for me is 'excessive' braking when you I have to for a yellow light. I don't worry about it - I just drive and get money back.
 
We just switched to SF and we have it on our two vehicles at present. Well, actually we only have it on one of our two vehicles because we're swapping out my wife's Honda Accord for a MYLR before end of month so my SF rep indicated we should just wait on hers and just install the DS unit into the new vehicle. Honestly, these tracking units aren't really geared to help consumers IME. For example, we took my truck (2018 RAM 1500 pickup) on a weekend getaway into the Pocono mountains this weekend and the device recorded several speeding violations and a few heavy acceleration and heavy braking events - none of which were legitimate based upon real world conditions. A few of the heavy acceleration events were due to road construction limiting one vehicle merging onto a major highway (I80) at a time - which requires you to punch it given oncoming traffic averages 70mph in a 50mph zone. Talk to any cop and they will tell you the safest speed on a major highway is to go with the flow of traffic - don't speed and don't go too slowly. On a major highway we got dinged on the app for 70-75mph in a 50mph zone however we were simply going with the flow of traffic and would have actually been more of a danger on the road sticking to the speed limit with people zooming around us for example. These devices/apps aren't intelligent in this respect - so be careful when using them as a result.
 
We just switched to SF and we have it on our two vehicles at present. Well, actually we only have it on one of our two vehicles because we're swapping out my wife's Honda Accord for a MYLR before end of month so my SF rep indicated we should just wait on hers and just install the DS unit into the new vehicle. Honestly, these tracking units aren't really geared to help consumers IME. For example, we took my truck (2018 RAM 1500 pickup) on a weekend getaway into the Pocono mountains this weekend and the device recorded several speeding violations and a few heavy acceleration and heavy braking events - none of which were legitimate based upon real world conditions. A few of the heavy acceleration events were due to road construction limiting one vehicle merging onto a major highway (I80) at a time - which requires you to punch it given oncoming traffic averages 70mph in a 50mph zone. Talk to any cop and they will tell you the safest speed on a major highway is to go with the flow of traffic - don't speed and don't go too slowly. On a major highway we got dinged on the app for 70-75mph in a 50mph zone however we were simply going with the flow of traffic and would have actually been more of a danger on the road sticking to the speed limit with people zooming around us for example. These devices/apps aren't intelligent in this respect - so be careful when using them as a result.
I did not know they tracked your actual speed against their database of speed limits. So they are using your GPS speed and comparing it to the speed limit in their database for that piece of road and then dinging you for it?

I'm going to have to get a bigger tin foil hat.
 
I did not know they tracked your actual speed against their database of speed limits. So they are using your GPS speed and comparing it to the speed limit in their database for that piece of road and then dinging you for it?

I'm going to have to get a bigger tin foil hat.
Sure does - here’s a couple of screenshots from our trip home yesterday from the DS app as an example of what I’m talking about:

8222CF1E-E3FA-4D5C-A6DD-53E0BFF6EF00.png


08EFD2D2-E73C-4C1E-9F8D-7E23D7CF251B.png
 
Sure does - here’s a couple of screenshots from our trip home yesterday from the DS app as an example of what I’m talking about:
Thank you for posting these. Reaffirms my commitment to not provide them any of this data, at any time. Nope, nope nope nope. Not for me.

But thank you for your openness and willing to share how it works and what it does! Greatly appreciated.