Car insurance is a big expense for motorists and dashboard cameras are taking off to protect drivers from the perils of the road. Would you let your insurer monitor your driving for cheaper premiums?
Following years of increasing car insurance premiums, many drivers are looking for new ways to lower their motoring costs – and dashboard cameras are a new addition.
Drivers can attach a camera to their windscreen that records the road ahead and can be used as evidence should an insurance provider need it.
We’ve already seen that more than 80% of you would potentially buy a dashboard camera. But what about letting your car insurer monitor your driving in the hope of cheaper premiums?
Black boxes monitor a driver’s safety
Telematics car insurance schemes use GPS tracking and gyroscopes to monitor when and where you drive and how quickly you accelerate, brake and go around corners. These devices then relay this information back to your insurer who assesses how ‘safe’ your driving is.
And if you’re a ‘safe’ driver, this in theory results in a discount off your insurance premium. But do you think it’s worth letting your insurer monitor how you drive on for the chance of a discount?
The difficulty defining safe driving
I’m personally not sure that black box schemes are sophisticated enough yet to prove how safe someone’s driving is. One driver may accelerate hard down motorway slip roads and take corners faster than some other drivers but have a good awareness of the roads around them.
Another may drive more cautiously but could be surrounded by distractions within the car which wouldn’t be accounted for in the form of the black box. A telematics system would consider one of the drivers safer than the other.
What if dashboard cameras and telematics systems were combined? What if your insurer could see that you slammed on the brakes because to respond to a safety hazard? What if they knew that you swerved because a driver pulled into your path and you had to steer around them? Now that would be an interesting integration of technology…