The details differ from company to company, but they all rely on modern on-board diagnostic systems. Progressive's original "TripSense" is plugged into you car's diagnostic port, every six months being removed to have the info uploaded and sent to the company. The new system, called "MyRate," uses a telematic device that wirelessly transmits the driver data over a cellphone network.

GMAC's program utilizes a car's existing OnStar system...which just happens to have GPS capabilites. They insist that GPS tracking is not used to monitor your every move — just your mileage. You know, because checking the odometer just isn't good enough. GMAC does admit "There is an opportunity to get other information, and as we do we will be able to correlate risk to actual driving behavior itself rather than more predictive factors." Of course, you'd still have to pay for the annual OnStar subscription, so you'll have to judge whether the insurance savings makes the OnStar spam you'll get each month worthwhile.
[WSJ]

Traffic cameras are claimed to be used to discourage running red lights, and improving public safety, even though studies are beginning to show evidence to the contrary. We'll be happy when the states figure out how to run their respective governments without traffic fines acting as unlevied taxes against the citizens. [Motorists.org]

While the main purpose of the GPS devices is to alert crews of engine problems or improve the routes of trash collection and services, officials in Islip, New York say they've saved nearly 14,000 gallons of gas over a three-month period now that employees know they're being watched. This makes us wonder if government employees in Islip are driving Hummers or just exceptionally dishonest. [AP via Google]

Some Aussie engineers have found that setting up a network of sensors in the urban driving environment and rigging cars to respond to traffic flows by optimizing speeds will cause an ordinary pure-internal-combustion vehicle to beat the fuel economy of an "unintelligent" gasoline-electric hybrid car over the same course. The drawback? Big Brother drives your car for you! We wonder what would happen with a mix of intelligent and unintelligent cars on the same streets, not to mention how much road rage would be triggered when Big Brother says your car will catch all the green lights at an optimum velocity of 3.7 miles per hour. – Murilee Martin

'Intelligent' cars as fuel-efficient as hybrids [physorg.com]

Related:
Volkswagen Revives 200-mpg Car Project [internal]

Never let it be said that the Germans haven't done their part for literacy. Besides providing the world with the works of Goethe, Brecht and Werner von Braun, Deutschland also gave rise to industrial conglomerate Siemens, who've developed a system that reads speed limit signs and can adjust a vehicle's speed downward at the driver's discretion to stay within limits. The all-seeing eye cross checks the electrosensory stimulus it takes in with GPS data to ensure it's not wonky. We imagine this would be a highly-useful invention in a Gatso-riddled society. – Davey G. Johnson

Cars to Automatically Detect Speed Limit [Driving.ca]

Related:
If You Can't Buy It, Build It: Wanky The Safety Cat [Internal]

Goddammit. We know there are idiots in this country who have no business reproducing. Sadly, this has always been the case. And as eugenics run counter to our antifascist tendencies, all we can do is use our bully pulpette to grouse about a bill in Oregon that lawmakers are attempting to pass, mandating that children under 13 ride in the back seat of automobiles. We're all for safety — to a point. And what of kids in non-quad-cab pickup trucks? Will children be banned from riding in sports cars? Or vehicles without five-star crash ratings? At some point we need to be cognizant that overregulation and a society of fear play right into the hands of the asshats who want all of us to be just like them. Hey brother, can you tell me the way to the nearest megachurch? – Davey G. Johnson

Bill details where kids could ride in cars [The Worldlink]

Related:
Let's All Sign Up for the Nanny State! Is Compulsory Stability Control Coming? [Internal]

When we were in San Francisco over the New Year, we noticed a Mini billboard on 80 eastbound just before the bridge with a digital readout that displayed various slogans. It turns out that the Anglo-Bavarian small-car brand has bigger plans afoot for said signs, which are currently up in Chicago, New York, Miami and obviously, Sucka Free. Now one can sign up, send the BMW unit a message you'd like to see displayed, and four to six weeks later, you'll receive a special key fob that signals the billboard as you pass by to display your personal message. Big Brother or an appeal to vanity writ large? Either way, it's amusing and troubling at the same time. – Davey G. Johnson

Mini USA's Motorboards [MotoringFile]

Related:
Counterfeit Mini Ads Roundup [Internal]

Oh crap. Now they want to ban smoking in cars carrying kids in California. And smoking in state parks. Not that one should smoke in an enclosed space around children, but please, California, we have enough laws. Can't we do something productive with our legislative time? This is just getting silly. – Davey G. Johnson

Legislation aims to ban smoking in state parks, cars carrying kids [SignOnSanDiego]

Related:
LA Auto Show Broke: Drinking, Smoking and Sweating; The Jalopnik Way [Internal]

A Canadian company is touting its RFID solution to vehicle tracking as superior to plate-reading cameras. Instead of a passel of plate-reading cameras, they're suggesting a network of sensors throughout Southern BC, allowing authorities to track cars in real time with GPS coordinates. Some call it smart. We think either solution should be shelved. Besides, if you were a real criminal, wouldn't you simply take a cordless drill to the license plate and bore through the chip? – Davey G. Johnson

Firm pans plate readers [BCNG Portals]

Related:
Black Box Bogey: NHTSA Says Carmakers Must Tell Buyers They're Being Watched [Internal]

The Feds have spoken: No exposure without disclosure. This week, the NHTSA gave automakers a green light to put black-box data recorders aboard new vehicles, but from 2011 onward they must inform car buyers if a model carries such a box. (Currently, 60% of new cars have them.) That'll give regulators and manufacturers plenty of time to work up a standard-triplicate disclosure document (yours is the pink copy) buyers will likely sign and date at purchase time. The agency will also set a baseline requirement for the amount of data the boxes collect during a crash at 15 pieces, including speed, seat belt use (binary), and which pedal a driver hit beforehand. That last one would indemnify carmakers in cases of accidental acceleration. Thanks, Big Bro. Er, sort of.

NHTSA requires disclosing "black box" details [AutoBlog]

Related:
More on Black Boxes [internal]

We remember being young and riding in our friends' parents GMC Safari with cigarette smoke choking us in the backseat. We hated it. We remember staying at a youth hostel in Nuremburg — watching the European soccer championship ten years ago — and while we were puffing on our own roll-me-own, our friend's secondhand smoke was burning our eyes. So it absolutely makes no sense to say that we're opposed to proposed California legislation that would ban smoking in cars containing children. Except for one thing: it's one more intrusion by the nanny state into people's lives. Frankly, if we're gonna get into this level of micromanagement, why don't we just start euthanizing people with low IQs? Screw killing all the lawyers. Let's start with the middle-managers.

Snuffing out smoking in cars with children [Sacramento Bee]

Related:
Smoking Ban in Kid-Carrying Cars [Internal]

We've been following the UK's march toward state-controlled motoring with empathetic semi-amusement. With every new municipal proposal to employ technology for the sake of imposing iron will over the motoring public, we're ever more grateful even for the US's anti-driver traffic laws (in urban areas, at least) — the doubling of fines at will, the Boss Hoggian manipulation of "speed zones," the selective enforcement — and even more grateful for the Constitution (even in the shape it's in). But government control of traffic speeds via satellite? Surely that must be over the top? A conspiracy theory for sure, right?

Well, no. It's called Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) — a system under development at Leeds University — and it combines a vehicle-mounted black box with a navigation system that includes roads' speed limits. The system determines a car's position via satellite and matches its speed with the local speed limit, and (hold on to your driving gloves) adjusts the throttle or even applies the brakes if a car exceeds the limit. According to PistonHeads, it's being funded to the tune of millions of pounds by the Department for Transport. Turning drivers into dependence-addicted meatware? Yeah, that'll end well.

SPEED LIMIT REVIEW HIDES SINISTER PURPOSE [PistonHeads]

Related:
Dystopia or Utopia? You Make the Call; More Big Brother [internal]

Dr. Raja Sengupta of Cal has come up with a novel imminent-collision-awareness idea. First, we kill all the lawyers. Then we equip each car with GPS and a Wi-Fi transmitter. Then, cars talk to each other and decide where they are in relation to each other. It's an interesting idea, and GM's throwing some money at it, but cripes if it doesn't sound like it could totally be used for evil. We're not sure on this one.

Wireless on the Road to Safety [Berkeley Engineering]

Related:
Windows for Your Scraper: Media Center in Buick Century [Internal]

And we thought This is Hertfordshire was un-hip. Some wily Stooges fan at the copy desk came up with the headline, "Police TV eye on cars" hoping to spin it past his superiors and onto the World Wide Web for like likes of us to geek out over. According to the article, the town of St. Albans has set up cameras that track vehicles via license plate, catching miscreants, road-tax dodgers, the uninsured and general hoonage in the name of safety. We wonder if the St. Albanses know that the "TV" in the Stooges track isn't a television, but rather stands for "twat vibe." Appropriate, non?

Police TV eye on cars [This is Hertfordshire]

Related:
Oh Criminy. They've Got Sound Cameras Now [Internal]

Red light cameras. Speed cameras. And now...wait for it...yes, sound cameras. Here, children, is the Military Industrial Complex working for your benefit. An Australian defense contractor has come up with a camera that snaps license-plate photos of bumpin' thunderboxes, extra-rumpety exhaust notes and even ill-timed horn blasts. Frankly, the only guy we really wanna ticket is the guy down the street whose oversensitive alarm goes off every time some guy on a Harley roars by.

New Camera Mails Tickets to Noisy Cars [The Newspaper]

Related:
Defeat Speed Camera via Dorky Add-On? [Internal]

Commenter buzaw0nk noted last month that the nation's first speed cameras had gone up on Arizona's Loop 101 highway in Scottsdale. The early reports are in, and authorities say that motorists have noted less weaving in and out of traffic, as well as reduced speeds. The program's currently a nine-month trial, but assume that we haven't seen the last of these beasts on the roadside, considering the cameras have flashed 15,000 motorists in two weeks. [UPDATE: We're dumb. DC beat Arizona to the speed-camera punch, and we even wrote about it. Thanks, Mike.]

Loop cameras slowing cars, official says [Arizona Republic]

Related:
Chastise, Don't Punish: Brits Say Signs Reduce Speeds Better than Cameras [Internal]

Man, you know, we're really thinking that Orwell was right, especially about his native land. Eggheads in the land of bangers 'n' mash are making predictions that the entire nation's transport system will be controlled by RFID-receptive "network clouds" (aren't there enough goddamn clouds in Blighty already?) that will direct the routing of vehicles running on autopilot by 2056. We're really glad that we'll be like 81 then and won't notice, so long as they keep our wheelchair's IV buddy on a Johnnie Walker drip.

RFID-tagged driverless cars on roads by 2056 [silicon.com]

Related:
Big Brother Britain Takes it up a Notch [Internal]

Roadside radar is pass . Apparently, the hip new thing is Astucia's speed detection stud. Designed to be hidden in lane-markers and linked to roadside cameras, the speed stud uses infrared to assess the speed of a vehicle and then shoots it over to a roadside box. Of course, what's to stop somebody from going out late at night with a Makita cordless and drilling the things? Nothin', that's what. Cool Hand Luke will have his revenge.

Speed Detection Stud [TransportTrends]

Related:
Cops Nailed for Speeding in Wales, Kind Of [Internal]

In the 1967 movie "Cool Hand Luke," when a cop asks Paul Newman why he's drunkenly sawing the heads off of parking meters, he tells him, "Small town, not much to do in the evenin.'" Newman's "natural-born world shaker" would have found himself on the chain gang even sooner had that small town had a photoviolationmeter, a new smart meter with a camera that can take candid shots and upload them to the authorities before ol' Luke could have gotten out his hacksaw. The meters can also call a driver's cell phone to let them know when time is running out. Call it Big Brother with a conscience.

Photo Violation Meter. The Lexus of Parking Meters [Transport Trends]

Related:
Anything for More Coin: Cities Push Techy Parking Meters [internal]

Dear old Blighty, why you gotta keep your TV-eye on me? Oh wait, I don't live there. And that's probably for the best, because car blog 4Drivers Only points us to an article in the UK's Independent that outlines exactly how Brits will have their privacy decimated like a stray kidney pie at the Crufts Dog Show. It appears the royal subjects will be subject to a new, national surveillance system that records the movements of all vehicles, all the time. The network of cameras will send pictures of all things driven and velocitous to a central database where the data will be held for at least two years. The lord government, as you'd suspect, made it all.

Every Get The Feelin' You Was Bein' Watched? [4Drivers Only]

Related:
Top Traffic Cop Wants Broad Surveillance Network in the UK [internal]

Wow...talk about your invasive big-brotherness. While the Swedes make great rock 'n' roll, we sometimes wonder about the extent that socialism has warped their brains. They've come up with a device that makes the throttle harder to depress when a speed limit is exceeded by a certain extent. And how does said gizmo know what the speed limit is?

By GPS, of course. Not having experienced the device ourselves, we can't say how it impacts the active safety of a car by allowing it to accelerate out of a dangerous situation, but it gives us the jeeblies anyway. Those try-anything Canucks at Transport Canada are currently testing it on ten Ottawa-area cars. Don't let us know what they find out.

Canada tests electronic naggers for cars [UPI]

Related:
More on Progressive's Elective "Black Boxes" for Usage-Based Insurance [Internal]

Thankfully, where we live, we're only blessed with overzealous, revenue-generatin' cops with radar guns instead a phalanx of Orwellian speed cameras. But if we were to live in such an always-watched-all-the-time society, we wouldn't mind having a service like Camtracker, which just debuted in the UK. For 35p a day, it sends out a text message whenever one's in the vicinity of a mobile speed camera. All that's required is a hands-free phone. Of course, you could save roughly 20 bucks a month just by driving slower, but where's the fun in that?

Mobile Camera Alert Service Launches [PistonHeads]

Related:
And We Thought They Were a Peace-Loving People: Angry Swiss Motorist Trashes Speed Camera [Internal]

As we once reported, Progressive is paying some of its policyholders to be the Guinea pigs in a research study into usage-based insurance. Blogger mnot now points us to details of Progressive's TripSense data recorder — a dongle connected to a car's data port that collects information on driving habits. According to Progressive's terms and conditions, the device will record information on "each individual trip you take in your vehicle" including "trip start time, duration, and speed" "trip distances, estimated annual mileage, weekly trips, time spent in different speed bands, and daily travel," and must be in use 95% of the time. It's all in the name of collecting vehicle usage data to "perform additional research and analysis" on a possible plan to adjust rates based on actual driving data. Personally, we're more comfortable paying higher rates than having a gang of suits second-guess our driving skills. That's what wives/girlfriends/mothers-in-law are for. Dongle this, Prog-rock.

via mnot's Web Log

Related:
Progressive Testing Black Box to Calculate Insurance Rates [internal]

What a difference not having a Constitution makes. Britain's senior traffic policeman (a far more powerful position than it sounds) is planning a national surveillance network to keep tabs on every car, everywhere. He's calling for the placement of cameras every 400 yards on highways and at supermarkets, gas stations and in town centers by late 2006. Data from the cameras — as many as 50 million number plates daily — would be gathered in Big Bro's national data bank and stored for two years. It's also planned that the cameras would enforce "variable" speed limits based on road conditions. Pistonheads says it could be "one of the most pervasive surveillance systems on the planet." (Oh, and keep an eye on the courts, kiddies. Our own "right to privacy" is dependent on case law.)

Pervasive surveillance imminent as national database fires up to watch us all [Pistonheads]

Related:
Seize The Uninsured! Brits Get All Draconian and Stuff [internal]

Hoo boy. Big day for technology aiding the insurance industry, that's for sure. London police, aided by license-plate-scanning cameras connected to a database of insured and uninsured motorists, now have the authority to impound uninsured vehicles. If said vehicles aren't claimed within 14 days, they can be disposed of. What's more they're also resorting to more clamping around London, in an effort to ease strain on the courts system. Angle Grinder Man, where are you?

Police can seize cars driven by uninsured drivers, dispose of them [Vip News]

Related:
Court Dislodges Fat Man From Mercedes Lease [Internal]

Thiiiiiis is howwwwww liiiiiiiife shoullllld beeeeeee...[under the thumb of Big Brother]. Progressive, the nation's third-largest auto insurer, is running a test program where they're handing customers a black box and fifty bucks to see what the devices find out about driving habits. Personally, we're completely, totally and wholly opposed to any such invasion of our privacy. Insurance companies already have too much power in this world and we'll drive a goddamn Hupmobile daily before we'll let a bunch of suits track our driving habits electronically.

Are you a good driver? Prove it [LA Times]

Related:
It's the Estrogen, Stupid: Why Women Drivers Are Better [Internal]

For those who don't necessarily take God with them as their co-pilot, automotive engineers have installed data recorders in many new vehicles to bear witness when Judgement Day comes a-callin'. Needless to say, privacy advocates aren't particularly excited by this development, including your friends here at Jalopnik. California was the first state in the union to pass laws governing the way the information can be used, while Arkansas, Nevada, New York, North Dakota and Texas quickly followed suit. Nevertheless, the Feds are big on the technology. We wouldn't be surprised if this ends up like the medi-pot wars, minus the added fun of seeing hippies getting frisked.

Big Brother: Should it be in your car [Detroit News]

Related:
Dashboard Confessional: Oregon to Supplement Smog Stations with Self-Serve, Big Brother [Internal]

We hate text messaging. We hate typing with our thumbs. We hate the noise our phone made when we used to get them. We hate the lack of nuance and the bastardized spelling. And we also hate that Malta has a new system for citizens to report smoking vehicles by text-messaging. Crap like this divides communities and pits citizens against each other; brother vs. brother, spy vs. spy, etc. Besides, have you ever tried to text while driving? It's an absolute recipe for disaster.

Thousands report exhaust-emitting cars [di-ve.com]

Related:
California to Bust Smokers with Invisible Light [Internal]

We could make some obvious comment about Orwell being English; oh, wait, we suppose we just did, didn't we? Okay, pathetic attempts at being vaguely meta aside, England's got a couple of ideas on the burner guaranteed to send civil-liberties activists through the roof. First up, is a proposed black-box program that would record accident data, as well as an incentive program designed to reward drivers who install devices to keep their vehicles within the speed limit at all times. Frankly, we think these speed limiters are unsafe; leaving no headroom to accelerate through a dangerous situation, which is just as valuable a tactic as putting one's faith in a solid pair of brakes.

The second is rampant camera installation in at least 10% of the nation's vehicles to catch toll evaders. While the program currently is targeted toward vehicles owned by the national and municipal governments, we could envision financial incentives offered to private citizens to spy on their fellow men. After all, who does gossip better than the Brits?

Black boxes plan to make cars safer - and slower [Telegraph, UK]; Camera spies in million cars to trap toll cheats [Times, UK]

Related:
Big Brother Watch: ber-Scooter Scans License Plates for Stolen Vehicles [Internal]