cringely

My insurer (Auto Club of So Cal) is offering (for free) something called AAA OnBoard. Supposedly, it is an easy-to-install plug-in device that can help locate your vehicle in the event of theft. It also collects mileage information (and a lot more from what I can see on their website).

From their website, "AAA OnBoard services depend on wireless and GPS coverage, and require a compatible vehicle type (excluding 1995 or older, hybrid and electric vehicles). Certain restrictions and limits apply. If the device collects sufficient mileage information, this will be used to determine your annual mileage at renewal. Diagnostic codes are not available for all vehicles and in all circumstances."

"Using the AAA OnBoard Teen Safe Driver device and website, you can:
* Create boundary alerts to notify you when your teen arrives or leaves a location, such as school, sporting events, concerts, or work
* Receive an alert when the AAA OnBoard device has been disconnected and then re-connected
* Set speed alerts to automatically notify you through email and/or text when the set speed limit is exceeded
* Configure curfew alerts to identify the times when you allow your teen to drive
* View your teen’s vehicle trip history which includes the date and time of the trip as well as starting and ending locations
* With a click of a button, use the website to instantly locate your teen’s vehicle when you are worried
* AAA OnBoard can automatically send vehicle location when calling Emergency Roadside Assistance"

Does anybody know about this or have any comments?

jordanturbo

Personally I would not care for it. I have had vehicles stolen in the past and I have never wanted to ever see them again after someone else has tainted and bagged it, never to be the same again. I also would not want my insurance company to have access to certain information such as what speeds my vehicle hits on spirited driving, that my car can occasionally see track time, all these little things that could hurt your insurance rate instead of help it like in the ways it advertises. My last big concern is my own personal privacy. I would not want my insurance company, or any one else knowing everything about me. Hey I went and killed a person, to bad my AAA OnBoard busted me. Hey I haven't come out of the closet yet, but AAA OnBoard knows that I was at Buddy's the gay bar last night. Mmmm I cheated on my diet last night, I left work early stopped by McDicks on the way home and had a cheeseburger. I had gum so my wife never found out, but AAA OnBoard knows.

PcarDrmr

Wouldn't do that. They would gather your driving habits and how you use the vehicle. That information could lead them to cancel a policy based on your driving habits such as if you like to have spirited drives or if your a "safe" by the books driver. Similar to the airplanes black box but now AAA is spying on you.

RV4Flyer

If my insurance company were to ever require one of these devices I would find another insurance company. There is no way I want my insurance company to know how I drive. The only people these are good for (and even that's questionable) are the slow pokes in front of us.

SWK6Cup

IMHO:
You are willfully providing the insurance company your exact driving information, under the allure of a "discount" when in reality, (IMHO) they will use that very information to charge you more $$$ or, perhaps, even drop you, depending on their "analysis" of your data. Why would you want to voluntarily load the chamber of a gun which they will turn and point on you????? Insurance companies (i.e., profits) are all based on information/statistical analysis which they use to determine rates.

Yes, as a side note, most of the newer cars have black boxes which can provide the same data, and IF I am correct, we (the driving community) are still waiting for a legal decision on who actually owns the data contained inside and what is the driver's reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to that data. Also, the black box, I don't think, will provide vehicle/driver data for a month or so, unlike these little "inauspicious" OBDII readers......

I'd be extremely wary.....proceed with extreme caution if you choose to move forward. I will not hand my insurance company anything more that the required funds to keep the policy in place. Just my .02

rpm's S2

Uh, no.

cringely

Does anybody know what data the 996 OBDII collects? Does it have an (aircraft) black box recording capability in the event of a crash?

Invius

There is an insurance company here (In Florida, called Progressive, they call theirs the "Progressive SnapShot)...same idea, plugs into the OBDII reader. It also records any "hard braking" "accelerated takeoffs", and when you are driving. Two people I know have gotten them -- one their perfect client. Drives 6 miles each way to work, parks her car, goes to work, goes home. Drives easy, never had a ticket, etc. For her, she saved money on her policy by allowing them to monitor her driving (I told her I would NEVER do it). The other was a younger guy 25 or so, Progressive would not write a policy for him any longer after they viewed his driving habits (hard braking, accelerated take offs, and driving hours..(between the hours of midnight and 6am). All of these they viewed as additional layers of risk.

For me, NO WAY, not worth whatever the potential savings may be.

DS

Macster

The black box built in to the car as part of its safety system (airbag mainly) logs speed history (back in time a few seconds), current speed, seat belt use, throttle position, brake system status and if applied the severity and a few other things.

The data is overwritten on a continuous basis with really the primary intent is to record enough data for the auto maker to diagnose a possible spurious airbag deployment event or a failure to deploy in a qualifying event or a suspected failure of some other safety system, like ABS or e-Gas or stability control.

Data loggers, black boxes, that connect to the car's OBD2 connector can log just about anything the person who has access and control over the device's settings wants to log.

For instance: trip start time and location, trip end time and location, distance traveled, time at idle, the time spent in low, med, and high speed bands, and above high speed, max speed, lateral accel events, accel/braking events, "accidents", low battery and battery recovery events, engine over speed (the limit is user settable and does not have to be at redline), coolant over temp events, fuel consumption and so on.

Most (all?) insurance companies are going to these devices as states (for instance CA) are mandating insurance companies can only base what they charge for insurance on miles traveled. Thus insurance companies want very accurate distance traveled data.

In some (all?) cases the insurance companies are restricted on what info they can collect other than distance traveled. No location info. In fact some devices do not have location hardware (GPS) present because it raises the cost of the device and even speed or accel/brake events may not be logged.

However, before you get too relaxed, what is permitted to be collected or prohibited from being collected is on a state by state basis and some states may allow for more or less data to be collected than other states.

Torontoworker

All of what Mac said concerning how the black box works. In my jurisdiction YOU own the data until you give over ownership to the insurance company by accepting a payout in the event of a write off. However... IF you are charged with a moving violation the police may (and have) gotten a warrant to download this data in order to prove their case in court. I know of a local case where the owner *somehow* disrupted/destroyed the data on the box (located under the passenger seat) and was charged with obstruction of justice on top of the moving violation. Apparently he was allowed access to his car (recovering belongings) in an impound area after the accident and it was alleged this is when he may have damaged the recorder. The problem for the crown was that they could not conclusively PROVE he did anything as no one was watching him while he was at the vehicle. I won't say what I heard he was supposed to have done to wreak the data but it *seemed* possible. I was fighting a ticket when I overheard this exchange between his lawyer and the crown. Judgement was remanded to another date so I never heard the outcome. His was a crash at a red light.