Big Mother (or Father) is watching…

I’m not 100% sure I like the idea of this, but several US insurance companies are now offering devices to be installed in the cars driven by teenagers which report on unsafe and inattentive driving behaviours.
Reading this article, it appears that the participants are almost ambivilent about the intrusion into their behaviour away from the watchful eyes of their parents, but the results are positive.
A study of drivers who have had this equipment installed saw an 80% drop in ‘driving risk scores’ in the first 16 weeks.

So, here’s the theroy… Install this equipment, provided by your insurance company and setup some limits on range from home and speed as well as other more granular information such as heavy braking or cornering too fast. If your teen doesn’t cover up the camera after it’s installed and instead buys into the program, you can then expect to recieve texts if these limits are exceeded or be able to review recordings around ‘unsafe driving events’ for later discussion with your child.

It has it’s uses I guess, but I think it’s just replacing trust with technology and I’d like to think that by the time my kids are driving that we’d have a relationship where they would respect my instructions on where and how they can drive a car. If not we’re all in trouble because I’m sure my wife would be having a few ‘discussions’ around my driving behaviours that she would then have on tape 🙂

What do you think?