[–] Chimaira92 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Im guessing the goal is to centralise the insurance of self-driving cars which in turn will make it cheap as chips because they aren't going to be on the roads until they are close to perfect, meaning far less accident then human drivers.
On the other side, im guessing they will sky rocket insurance premiums of people still choosing to drive.
[–] SHIVASHIVASHIVA 1 point 0 points 1 point (+1|-1) ago
Insurance is fraud.
If you go in knowing how it works it isn't fraud and any agent is happy to explain the process to it, the companies them selves don't even try to hide it and the fact that they like every other business try to turn a profit isn't hidden either. You may not like how it works but fraud it is not.
[–] SHIVASHIVASHIVA 1 point -1 points 0 points (+0|-1) ago
I was in the 'nsurance industry' for decades, I know it's fraud. Insurance is corruption.
[–] blastar 1 point 0 points 1 point (+1|-1) ago
No, it's not. It's risk mitigation by pooling a little money from many people to cover expensive damages/liabilities that are rare but could happen to anyone in the pool. Think of insurance against your house burning down. And that is very useful.
The problem is that nowadays the term insurance is often used for financial products, which have nothing to do with insurance, i.e. risk mitigation. Like whole life insurance or health insurance. They are more like financing plans or just plain subsidies. Often because of government requirements, which have nothing to do with actual risk.
Think birth control vs. cancer in health "insurance". Birth control is no risk which needs to be mitigated, it's just a subsidy. Cancer, on the other hand, is a rare but catastrophic risk you better get covered.
[–] SHIVASHIVASHIVA 1 point -1 points 0 points (+0|-1) ago (edited ago)
insurance is fraud.
P.S. your anology is ironic and laughable, as cancer is also a fraud. jews are stooopid.
I think with fully self driving cars manufacturers will end up taking on all insurance obligations. If not for the sake of law, then for the sake of competition. Volvo has gone on the record stating that they themselves will take on fully liability for any at-fault accidents. That's actually a lot more relevant than it might seem at first. When the manufacturer is covering at fault accidents and everybody else is also required to have liability insurance you effectively end up getting full-coverage auto insurance for free.
The only delay here will be insurance companies lobbying. They'll try to bribe "donate" to enough politicians to make this illegal because 'reasons.' Similar to how many states decided to make it illegal for Tesla to offer direct-to-consumer sales again for 'reasons.' Nonetheless like Tesla can now sell to consumers in nearly all states, in the end corrupt politicians don't change anything - just delay it. So too will it be with vehicle insurance.
Those reasons for Tesla some make sense, I'm in MI so historically we had a lot of cars made here and if they could have sold directly out the factory door they could have priced in a way that people in other states would have no way of matching due to low storage costs no dealer and even no shipping costs. Any location with an auto factory near by would have been able to destroy the ability for anyone else to sell near there. Ford didn't want Dodge to have and advantage in some markets and Dodge didn't want Ford to have an advantage in others so they wound up with a process to cut both off and make it fair through a dealer.
Interesting! I wasn't aware of the backstory there. However, I'm still not seeing how that's reasonable at all. Without such arrangements the companies would seemingly have been obligated to build even more manufacturing plants in a wide array of areas. So you'd have more jobs and cheaper vehicles. And similarly companies that wanted to effectively compete would also be incentivized into localizing their production instead of building them in just Detroit at the time, places like Mexico now, and then shipping them out around the world.
This also could have opened up the door to more competitors which is something we've long since needed in the auto market. The recent auto bail out showed they, alongside banks, have now gotten so bloated that they've reached the pinnacle of crony capitalism - 'too big to fail.'
There's three stages in the evolution of self driving cars and insurance coverage
1) where we are now, in which manual drivers carry insurance because the overwhelming majority of auto accidents are directly a result of the human operator. The insurance models we have now are fine.
2) the "near future" in which Self driving cars are a not insignificant number of the vehicles on the road. I suspect that many, if not the vast majority of the accidents will still be cause by human operators in non-AI controlled vehicles, either directly, or indirectly. The insurance models we have now will for the most part be adequate, and mostly unaffected. I suspect we'll see some litigation over the role the computers played in the accidents pop up which will set the stage for the next iteration
3) All, or the overwhelming majority of cars are "self drive" - If the human operator is no longer at fault when an accident occurs, then who is? Insurance companies are going to need to become data analisys experts - Road conditions, vehicle maintenance I think are going to be the big drivers (no pun intended) of accidents. Road condition type accidents will still rely heavily on the owner to carry personal incident insurance, and maintenance issues (bad/worn tires, brakes, etc) would necessitate liability coverage, as it does now. The real question will be when it comes down to self-drive behavior. Is one brand of vehicle more "aggressive" in it's avoidance or drive behavior. Did the software malfunction, was there a flaw in the program?. The owner of the vehicle can't address any of these, only the manufacturer can. I suspect we'll see insurance companies (and individuals) holding them far more liable than they are now when these kinds of things occur.
[–] Spankydickerson [S] ago
Let's say you own a gun and you are shooting at the range. The gun blows up because of some manufacturing defect and the guy next to you gets blinded. Who is he going to sue?
[–] thrus 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
All, you for not maintaining your gun, the manufacture for making a faulty product, the range for not checking to be sure the weapons fired were not faulty, the ammo maker in case the bullet had to much powder, and any after market part maker you had installed on the gun as well.
[–] MetalAegis 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago (edited ago)
Where I live 'no-fault' insurance is mandatory. It doesn't matter whos fault it the accident was, the parties pay their $700 deductible which is taken from the value of the cars and whats left is paid out (provided the accident left you with a write off).
[–] MetalAegis ago (edited ago)
No such luck, our insurance provider is owned by the province. There is only one and it has a total monopoly. With no competition they can change whatever they like, I pay $136/m for a 2008 F150 for example.
[–] Scablifter ago
So could an attorney subpoena the source code of these self drivers? Or the software developer who has probably got another job and can't remember what he wrote all those years ago? Just a thought.