Did you hear the advertisement on the radio? ANWB wants to compensate people who drive ‘safe’ with discounts on their insurance premium. The better you drive, the bigger your discount will be.
You can earn a discount up to 30% and you’ll receive feedback on the way you drive. It could even improve safe driving performances around the Netherlands. It all sounds perfect.
But wait a minute, before you sign this deal, you do have to consider that by acknowledging this opportunity, you will have to plant a stick in your car, which accurately measures everything about your driving style, everywhere you go. The stick measures and stores your GPS coordinates, tracks your acceleration rates and follows your speed in corners at all times.
But what does ANWB sees as a ‘safe’ driving style? According to ANWB you drive safe by not exceeding the speed limits, driving slowly in corners, accelerating smoothly and by not braking too abruptly. These are the requirements where you have to score on. Depending on your score, based on an analysis of your personal data, you will receive a corresponding discount.
However, does your speed in corners make you an unsafe driver? Or will people adjust themselves to drive slow, frustrating other drivers? Will you immediately be ‘punished’ with higher prices if you once brake too hard? Will we check the garage if they don’t brake too hard with our cars during maintenances in order to receive our beloved discount?
And what if you don’t belong to this group of ‘safe’ drivers? You will receive a phone call and better hurry to find a new insurance before you get kicked out of this one. It is human to make a mistake or have bad luck sometimes. But at ANWB, these little human errors can lead to large financial consequences. You are at risk of losing your insurance.
As you already know, quite some personal data will be shared, stored and analysed by accepting this deal. ANWB will always know where you are and where you have been at each time period and when you exceeded the speed limit or broke other rules. Every little detail about you will be stored and may later be used against you. They can use all this information for their gains.
What will happen in the future? Will they further expand their privacy terms? Where is the border of our privacy? Where will the observation and control of our own lives and behaviour stop?
Sources:
https://radar.avrotros.nl/nieuws/detail/premieverlaging-voor-veilig-rijden/
https://www.anwb.nl/verzekeringen/autoverzekering/veilig-rijden
Lizzy, thank you for your interesting and enlightening blogpost. I actually didn’t hear this advertisement on the radio, so I’m glad I got to read your post and I’ve got a few thought that I would like to share with you.
First, I think it’s a good initiative that actually might help some people to start driving safer in order to receive a discount. But I wonder if the discount is actually lower than the discount of the current – “damage-free years”- system that insurance companies, which also indirect indicates how safe a person drives. I haven’t done research on it, but I don’t think that the discount will be comparable to ones from the current systems. For me now it just seems like an old idea (the current system) in new jacket (the stick).
Second, concerning the privacy aspect I think a lot of people will be scared off when they think about the intrude of their privacy. So, they may have expand their privacy terms. Although I personally think that it won’t matter. That is because I am aware of the fact that our privacy has been intruded for quite some time. For example, the information about your locations when you use a (OV-)card for public transport is also getting stored and may perhaps be used against you some time. The same goes for everything you post online. So, I think the border of our privacy has been long passed and with upcoming technology the observation and control of our lives would indeed probably increase.
Hi Lizzy,
Great article! I would find it very difficult to drive knowing the ANWB would watch me. I am currently taking lessons to get my driving license and it hasn’t been easy. But knowing someone would constantly watch me would definitely put me on edge. Do you think that the ANWB would be more lenient towards starting drivers while implementing this?
Thanks