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Comment by fransje26 | Hacker News Reader

Let's flip that point around. Why does anybody think it is reasonable that an insurance company be privy to a driver's point history?

The only weak argument that can be made is that "David" is a "danger" on the road because he drives too fast, and therefore, is bound to crash his car eventually. Which would "warrant" a higher insurance premium.

But the fact is that, if "David" was accident-prone, he would already be penalized by his malus.

So now he is being charged extra beforehand, for an accident he didn't commit, just because the insurance company can. In a way, it reminds me of Minority Report..

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He's being charged extra beforehand because the people who provably speed and are provably more reckless and provably more dangerous and provably more accident-prone are the ones that stand to benefit the most from insurance to the expense of other drivers.

There's no study I've seen that says that is true. Especially in a society where speed limits are increasingly NOT being set for road safety reasons but for political ones. Take for instance, Wales' 'blanket' 20mph policy that I think they want to bring in across the nation - there's evidence that 20mph limits don't reduce accidents with any statistical significance[0].

[0] https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/20-mph-speed-limits-hav...

Yes, however people who willingly violate laws are more reckless. Insurance is heavily regulated and the rates are set by actuarial data. In other words, insurance companies can only charge high rates for speeders if they can prove their past payouts were higher for speeders than non speeders.

Also the 20mph policy is about reducing the risk of pedestrian death, not accident rates.

> people who willingly violate laws are more reckless

That's a blanket assertion - surely it would depend on the law being violated and how it is violated. What if a law was unjust? What if a law was designed to be violated? Are free speech activists in authoritarian countries reckless?

> insurance companies can only charge high rates for speeders if they can prove their past payouts were higher for speeders than non speeders.

Untrue, there's little regulation on how insurance companies determine and charge for risk and there's next to no transparency.

> Also the 20mph policy is about reducing the risk of pedestrian death, not accident rates.

The referenced article looks at 'outcomes' - `road traffic collisions, casualties, or driver speed`. Not just accident rates.

The blanket assertion doesn’t have to be true in every case, it just has to be true on average. Because insurance companies operate on the statistics of all people. Sure, even though Dave has 173 speeding tickets in the past, he may not speed again, but on average he will.

> Untrue, there’s little regulation…

But this is not true. Not only are there large regulatory bodies whose main purpose is to audit the spending and calculations of insurance firms, but there are also laws on what companies can consider in actuarial calculations (e.g. not race).

He has been penalized, he has 3 points. People with 3 points are more likely to get more points than someone with no points, statistics like these are the way that insurance companies make money.

That's exactly missing the point.

He's got 3 points, and so? That's none of the insurance company's business. It's between a driver and the road authorities.

Statistically, a non-negligible proportion of medication prescribed to the general population can have an impact on cognitive abilities, and, de facto, make them worse drivers. Yet, car insurance companies are not privy to a driver's medical history. For a good reason: breach of privacy.

My argument is that points on a license fall under the same category: privacy, and not-their-business.

Then again, they also had insurances in the UK inviting drivers to install phone apps to monitor their driving, and set their premiums accordingly. So, if a country thinks that's absolutely fine, well, what to say..

Sounds backwards that somebody can break the law and claim it's their private matter.

Wow.. I guess Police States are not lost on everybody..

Even if traffic violations fell under criminal law, and most of them don't, it still would remain a private matter. Private companies simply have no right to a person's criminal record, full stop.

People who regularly exhibit risky behaviour should not be allowed to increase the risk premium of the entire population without paying a proportionally larger amount. Especially for harmful, yet pointless behaviour like driving too fast on public roads, endangering everyone.

Turn it around then. Charge everyone 2x the current average. Give 50% discounts for voluntarily demonstrating to the insurance company a clean driving record.

Same effect, extra pain in the ass.

Sounds like you want the government to intercede in private contracts. Make insurance companies asking you how many points you've got illegal.

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