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Thread: A problem with technology....

  1. #1

    Default A problem with technology....

    ....and autonomous/self-driving cars.

    When insurance companies use data to prove that human drivers are the weakest link in their risk analysis models....it will become too expensive for humans to drive a car, and the insurance costs of driving an "old car" will be unaffordable for anyone but the wealthiest car enthusiasts, who don't have to drive the cars they collect.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Flixy's Avatar
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    First if all we're quite far away from that, but even if that happens.. So what? People do cause most accidents, and with 'new' cars people can still get around. Safer, even.

    Do you also lament how horses are now used almost exclusively as hobby/sports animals and hardly for transportation?

    Also especially if most cars are driven by computers, cat enthousiasts would probably like to drive those rare human controlled cars
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  3. #3
    The answer to the question "so what?" is that it may result in significant increases to the financial burdens of many people, esp. senior citizens and young people with little money. I don't know how affordable horses were back in the day but I think it's undeniable that cars have been a godsend for ordinary people.

    I don't believe, however, that the transition will be as abrupt as GGT fears. I think it will be gradually phased in.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  4. #4
    Senior Member Flixy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    The answer to the question "so what?" is that it may result in significant increases to the financial burdens of many people, esp. senior citizens and young people with little money. I don't know how affordable horses were back in the day but I think it's undeniable that cars have been a godsend for ordinary people.

    I don't believe, however, that the transition will be as abrupt as GGT fears. I think it will be gradually phased in.
    Why exactly would this lead to a significant increase to their financial burden? It might, it might not, but I don't really see a direct reason it would definitely increase.
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  5. #5
    I said "may".

    If self-driving cars are safer (even with regular cars still on the roads), then the overall burden from accidents etc should decrease as they become more popular.

    One possible consequence of this may be that the burden on all insurance holders in general will decrease and premiums will go down.

    Another possible consequence is that the burden on owners of older, less safe cars will increase, for example in order to incentivise the use of safer cars or to fairly account for the share of accidents that can be attributed to older cars.

    Yet another possibility is that there will be a general trend towards increasing premiums for reasons that have little to do with the safety of self-driving cars.

    There are no doubt many other possible outcomes.

    I don't think it's easy to say for sure what will happen, and I think it would be interesting to examine the factors that influence auto insurance premiums in the US.

    I don't think it's fair to dismiss the concerns out of hand. Better to present compelling evidence for or against the various possible scenarios.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  6. #6
    Senior Member Flixy's Avatar
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    I agree you shouldn't dismiss qualified criticism out of hand, but here we see basically worrying about a future technology that like you say probably not be abrupt, based on a random belief that it will get more expensive. Even of the two scenarios you give that would make it more expensive one has no connection to this technology.

    Plus imagine the decrease in costs of accidents, both in human lives and economically - reducing traffic jams alone would huge, and you'd avoid a lot of deaths and disabilities.

    But yeah, let's ignore those advantages but complain about the risk that only rich people get to drive oldtimers as a hobby, because that's what GGT is worried about, not transportation becoming more expensive (which may or may not happen).
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  7. #7
    I imagine there are many people with strained finances and old cars who're worried about what the future may hold for their premium payments and if I were in their shoes I'd be worried too.

    The concern isn't "random", it's one of the possible outcomes. The likelihood of that outcome is debatable, but at present the future is uncertain. The uncertainty is a downside and legitimate cause for concern (depends of course on how much uncertainty you're okay with, which I imagine may depend in part on what your financial situation is).

    As GGT says in the OP, it will probably become clear that human drivers are the "weakest link" so that much is given and of course implies that self-driving cars are likely to be safer. Don't think anyone here believes otherwise.

    While it's conceivable that GGT's primary concern is that rich people will own old cars, I believe it is more likely that her primary concern is instead that older technology will become increasingly obsolete and expensive for people like her so that she'll be forced to either buy a new and expensive car (which may be impossible or unaffordable) or pay more in premiums for the privilege of driving her current car. If that's not the case then it really doesn't matter, because no doubt it will be the case for other people.



    Now, putting aside our musings on the inner workings of GGT's mind for a moment, let's talk serious.

    Do you believe the rise of self-driving cars will influence auto insurance premiums? y/n

    Do you believe the impact on premiums will be different for owners of new self-driving cars and owners of old cars? y/n

    Will premiums for old-car owners go up? y/n

    Will premiums for old-car owners go down? y/n
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  8. #8
    Senior Member Flixy's Avatar
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    Yes, probably, don't know and don't know. At this point that's just guessing. Overall increase in road safety could drive all premiums down, and you know as well as I do most accidents are due to human error. Even if you don't have a car like that yourself, you'll be less likely to cause damage to other cars if those are mostly automatic (and if you're poor you're not that likely to have insurance going further than that). And an increase in transportation efficiency (fewer traffic jams) could be the economic boost that gets you your job, if we're guessing about the future.

    The impact I do actually see happening within a couple of decades will mostly affect truck drivers.
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  9. #9
    COUNTERPOINT:

    autonomous cars will be a massive boon to the very old, the disabled, or anyone else unable to drive themselves.
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  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    ....and autonomous/self-driving cars.

    When insurance companies use data to prove that human drivers are the weakest link in their risk analysis models....it will become too expensive for humans to drive a car, and the insurance costs of driving an "old car" will be unaffordable for anyone but the wealthiest car enthusiasts, who don't have to drive the cars they collect.
    Insurance will not be that expensive, in particular if you just want liability only (something people with crap cars probably have anyway).

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    COUNTERPOINT:

    autonomous cars will be a massive boon to the very old, the disabled, or anyone else unable to drive themselves.
    Sure, provided they have money for a self-driving car!




    What I'm most interested in is how the liability aspect will play out.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  12. #12
    Two things about that:

    1) If we take as given the premise that all cars will eventually be self-driving, then eventually they're not going to be any more expensive than cars are currently.
    2) You don't need to actually own a self-driving car in order to travel in one. One business model that's frequently discussed is to just have a big pool of them somewhere, and you can simply whip out your smart phone, summon one to your front door and have then have it take you wherever you want to go.
    When the sky above us fell
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  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    ....and autonomous/self-driving cars.

    When insurance companies use data to prove that human drivers are the weakest link in their risk analysis models....it will become too expensive for humans to drive a car, and the insurance costs of driving an "old car" will be unaffordable for anyone but the wealthiest car enthusiasts, who don't have to drive the cars they collect.
    This logic doesn't make any sense. Let us imagine (as we all do) that self driving cars are substantially safer on the roads than a human-operated car. OK, so it makes sense that your insurance premiums should dramatically drop when you start using a self-driving car. There are interesting questions as to who, exactly, should be paying for those premiums (are you at fault if an obscure flaw in Google or Apple's hardware/software causes an accident?), but certainly it seems likely that the cost of insuring against liability/etc. should be lower than currently.

    That does not, however, imply that human-operated vehicles will necessarily get more expensive to insure (except in relative terms). The total risk pool will be getting smaller because self driving cars are not just reducing their own chances of getting into accidents, but reducing the overall accident rate (again, assumption, but a reasonable one - especially in early stages of rollout). Lower total risk pool means you need less total premiums to fund appropriate insurance for everyone. Granted, most of those savings (if not all) will accrue to the people who are reducing the risk pool the most - i.e. those owning self driving cars - but there's no reason to suspect that the premiums of others should go up in real terms as a result.

    One could imagine an alternative model where we don't look at the cost of insuring a given risk pool and instead argue that insurance companies are trying to maintain some constant absolute level of profits. Presumably margins on self driving cars would be similar or lower (on a lower base), meaning that to get a similar level of profits overall the margin on human-operated cars might need to be higher, resulting in higher premiums. However I find this challenging to actually support - the insurance marketplace is pretty competitive for auto insurance, so I find it hard to believe that you'd be able to get systematic increases in margins on a class of driver without someone coming in to compete that away.

    Lastly, one alternative argument might be that those driving human-operated cars would be uninsurable. In the long run I certainly see that as a possibility, but by then self-driving cars will be cheap and ubiquitous enough (and with a substantial secondary market) that cost arguments in favor of old cars are likely to be bunk. In the short and medium term, though, I think that's not very likely. The human-operated market will still be huge and will probably be more profitable (in absolute terms, though not in marginal terms) than the self-driving market. Furthermore, the risks are not catastrophic in the same way you get with other sorts of insurance payouts where certain segments become uninsurable (e.g. terminal, expensive health conditions). The ceiling on payouts for auto policies is not really that high.

    So overall I think this is really little cause for concern.
    "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    Sure, provided they have money for a self-driving car!
    This:

    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    2) You don't need to actually own a self-driving car in order to travel in one. One business model that's frequently discussed is to just have a big pool of them somewhere, and you can simply whip out your smart phone, summon one to your front door and have then have it take you wherever you want to go.
    Car sharing is already a 'thing' in Switzerland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobility_Carsharing
    Currently you have to go to a pick-up station to get your car (with your mobile to access the key). And you have to bring it back there. But with autonomous driving cars, you need no pickup and no bringing back.

    You don't only need to own a car, you don't need a garage or parking slot either.
    "Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen." - Helmut Schmidt

  15. #15
    You should not be afraid of computers driving cars.
    You should be afraid of monopolies if price is your concern.
    You also should be worried about AI and hardware reliability if safety is your concern.
    Without those concerns, entering a car would be like entering a train with a robot that drives. No one fears trains.
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