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Car insurance is expensive no matter what age you are, but for those under 25 it’s just horrendous. Now insurers in Britain are starting to offer up to a 15 per cent discount for young drivers, if you mount a crash-cam in your car.
Cameras have been fitted to lorries and emergency vehicles for ages; we’ve all seen the footage on Police, Camera, Action at one stage or another. Now the same technology is being offered to young motorists by ChilliBongo. There’s a catch though, the camera doesn’t come free with your insurance policy — you have to cough up £250 for it and mount it yourself.
Still, 15 per cent off a £2000-odd insurance premium is £300, so you’ve made your money back and more in just the first year. The camera is basically there to help cut down on fraudulent “crash for cash” claims, which often take advantage of young drivers. It’ll record the head-on collision footage, as well as g-readings. It won’t make a blind bit of difference if someone crashes into the back of you or T-bones you though, of course.
Some day I reckon we’ll end up with cameras or radar all over our cars to show precisely, which fool was at fault when they smashed into your pride and joy. Till then, windscreen mounted cameras will have to do I guess. [BBC]
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So long as it didn’t record audio… lol
I am hoping to start learning soon and I have already got two cameras on order for when I do finally decide to get a car. The money I would save would pay for the cameras. they were £100 each i hope that I could save some money
YOLO
The day I am required to have a camera in my car in order to get insurance is the day I start a John Connor style resistance/revolution against what would be a tyrannical nanny-state…I’d happily pay double my insurance premium to keep this crap out of my car!
They might say the equipment is there to save me money, or to help attribute blame in the event of a crash…but we all know it’s a slippery slope to being monitored to the point that all the fun of driving is taken away…
The video recording is yours. I don’t think you have to use them if you don’t want to.
I understand that is the case at the moment. I was more riffing from Sam’s bit where he says:
“Some day I reckon we’ll end up with cameras or radar all over our cars to show precisely, which fool was at fault when they smashed into your pride and joy.”
I don’t know about that. Have you seen the videos on youtube about people throwing themselves in front of slow moving cars in order to get insurance claim? There was this one video where the car stopped and the guy had to jump sideway in order to touch the car. If it wasn’t for the video recording, this case could have gone either way in court.
I’m usually a mild-mannered chap, but if someone did that to me…I’d find it hard to control myself to the point that I wouldn’t instead be going to court for GBH or murder…
Just make sure you dispose of the body and make the car disappear.
Drivings fun!! I pray for the day I have my own robot chauffeur and I’m driven not driving LOL.
I’d gladly put this in my car if it gave a discount to older drivers.
I’m completely for this kind of thing. I remember hearing that the AA were offering discounts if you installed these and more in your car so that they could measure how far you drove, what time you drove, your speed and braking patterns on corners etc. Insurance premiums are supposed to reflect your likelihood of having or causing a crash, and it’s quite obvious that the current profiling system isn’t an effective way of doing that.
After the first term, the AA would offer differing premiums based on how your driving had been, and you could find out at any time what was pushing them up, so if it was due to braking you could change your habits to brake more gently and hence become a safer driver.
I don’t see a better way to price twatish drivers off the roads and reward safe drivers by reducing their costs.
I honestly can’t believe there are people that think this is a good idea! Hey, how about we put a camera everywhere to make sure people are not doing anything stupid.
Let’s put a camera in your kitchen to make sure you don’t start a fire by accident. That should bring the insurance premiums down, right? You’ll never have sex in the kitchen again but, hey, who cares, your insurance premium will be lower. And one in the bedroom, in case you feel nice and fuzzy and stupidly decide to use candles. Because they are dangerous. How about one in your fridge and one in your dinning room to make sure you’re not overeating/over-drinking ; that should bring your life-insurance premiums down. One in your rest room, to make sure you are washing your hands. Coz, you know, germs can cause all sorts of diseases and your health-insurance is already expensive.
Well Sam, for you these windscreen mounted cameras will have to do I guess.
They already do this in other parts of the world (USA, Russia etc) as well as in commercial vehicles e.g. trucks etc. It works. It’s a good idea. The video is yours. It’s as straight forward as putting a security camera outside of your home or business. I find some comments about how intrusive this is quite ridiculous. This isn’t ‘Big Brother’, it’s saving money and protecting your interests.
I don’t think we are far away from having intelligent cars that are far more aware of what has happening then we are, you will one day be sitting behind a wheel shouting and gesturing when the car says, ‘I don’t know why you are so irate Dave? It was you who was in the wrong, would you like me to send a sincere apology to the other Driver?’
so if camera is stolen will this affect no claim bonus?
After watching videos like this and loads more on youtube I was really tempted to get a “dash-cam” until I saw the price. I guess I’ll just have to hope I don’t run into people like this when I’m driving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmpx_2zwPlg