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bnjd's avatar

Insurance companies use your phone and not some device mounted in the car? That's absurd.

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David Muccigrosso's avatar

As an engineer, I’d totally design it that way, actually, because it has all the sensors you need AND it monitors touchscreen interactions.

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bnjd's avatar

You would design an onboard system? Is using phones a cheaper and less effective method?

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David Muccigrosso's avatar

To be clear, I was saying I *wouldn’t* do it onboard. The big upshot of the smartphone era is that everyone now has “the hardware” in their pocket, so it’s almost always cheaper to design an app.

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bnjd's avatar

Your use of the demonstrative pronoun was not clear. The errors in measurement that you complain about appear to be related to mobile devices. Hence my misunderstanding.

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David Muccigrosso's avatar

The errors aren’t inherent to the type of device, but to the simplicity of the KPI. Regardless of whether it’s on a smartphone or an onboard device, an accelerometer cannot determine whether I’m a bad driver who constantly tailgates and rides my brakes or a safe driver who occasionally has to slam the brakes because of a road condition I couldn’t control.

Which makes it a dumb KPI. You want to charge the tailgater more and the safe driver less, but that’s not what the KPI accomplishes.

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bnjd's avatar

You are not addressing two other complaints. If I understand, you complained that the app sometimes confused your driving behavior with your behavior when you were not driving. If so, that’s a mobile device problem.

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