Uh-oh: Government Motors wants to track you

[Evil_Conservative]

I wouldn't even consider them BECAUSE of "Flo" and the infantile commercials.

I had Progressive until 2008.  I bought a Nissan Versa hatchback and they jacked my rates really high.  I was going from a sports car to a "slow" car.  It pissed me off.  So I went over to State Farm.

[seahorse513]

I have been thinking about switching insurance. With my driving record, I feel 98.00 per month is excessive....

I normally wouldn't ask a personal question, but a block of you paying that much??

[vesta111]

I've gotten along without it for over 55 years, and I see no benefits to it. Now there's REALLY no benefit.

Only benefit I see is when some druggie plows into you and claims YOU caused the accident. Insurance can and will get the black boxes from both cars to determine the speed each was going, time of breaking speed and , speed and breaking prior to the accident.  Then there is Low Jack that can track where a thief has taken your car.

What about these EZ passes that let you go through a toll booth and bill you later.  I had no idea that a picture of the plate was taken when this was used until we had a sensational case here with a on the rise politician caused a big search an recovery and was found sitting under a tree dry as a bone a claiming he had in fact swam a river the night before.    His EZ Pass told another story.

I object to being tracked today, but if in the future  if I need an alibi, this can come in very handy.

[NHSparky]

I have been thinking about switching insurance. With my driving record, I feel 98.00 per month is excessive....

I normally wouldn't ask a personal question, but a block of you paying that much??

I've got a 3 1/2 year old car with full coverage and a $250 deductible and the liability is 100/300K, that I drive 25K miles a year.

If my company tried to charge me $1200/year I'd tell them to shove it up their asses, which is what I did to State Farm after a year here and went back to GEICO.  I pay a little over half that.

[CG6468]

Mainly because we live so close to obamaville, with its assorted car thefts and other vehicular problems, for my 2007 Honda Ridgeline State Farm charges:

361.99 twice a year.

That's discounted by 88.73 for multiple line, 79.63 for multicar, , 3.33 for anti-theft, 3.43 vehicle safety, and 94.90 for accident-free.

The total would be 361.99 + 270.02 =   632.01 each 6 months. And yes, I have shopped around, and we get the best deal from State Farm.

We hate this damned state and cannot WAIT to get the hell outta here. My wife retired in November, then it'll be some serious searching, maybe in Wyoming, with no taxes on ANY retirement income, i.e. pensions, SS, IRAs, etc.

[DumbAss Tanker]

I have been thinking about switching insurance. With my driving record, I feel 98.00 per month is excessive....

I normally wouldn't ask a personal question, but a block of you paying that much??

More by a good bit, not quite twice that, but that covers serveral vehicles and four drivers, one of whom is a 19-year-old male.  I have USAA and have had them for a long time.

[Evil_Conservative]

I have been thinking about switching insurance. With my driving record, I feel 98.00 per month is excessive....

I normally wouldn't ask a personal question, but a block of you paying that much??

We pay $120/mo for two cars and renters insurance.  We are with All State now. 

State Farm was charging us a lot of money and we switched to Geico in 2008.  Then switched to All State in 2009.  All State has been really good to us.

[seahorse513]

Thanks all, I am definitely going to call around....

[FreeBorn]

Welcome to the ant farm.

Ain't no way in hell I am ever going to tolerate that on my vehicles.

If ever I were to find one which someone has affixed to my vehicle it is immediately going  to be removed and shipped to North Korea. They can scratch their heads in wonder as they watch that little blip on their screen touching down in the People's Republik.

[jediab]

If my company tried to charge me $1200/year I'd tell them to shove it up their asses, which is what I did to State Farm after a year here and went back to GEICO.  I pay a little over half that.

Geico has been really fair to me and my wife for many years. Other places can't beat what I pay with them.

[docstew]

Long before any possible totalitarian police-state problems, On-Star or similar systems will become the means by which to impose a mileage tax on every driver.

I talked to a guy during a PCS move in 2003 who had an Onstar equipped minivan. He told me it was great, except when they denied warranty service because he went off-road with it. If they keep records for that, you can bet those records will be available to any LEO who asks.

[Eupher]

This article is a month old, but it's still interesting. It would appear the kid is of interest to the feds.

As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear oral arguments in a case Tuesday that could determine if authorities can track U.S. citizens with GPS vehicle trackers without a warrant, a young man in California has come forward to Wired to reveal that he found not one but two different devices on his vehicle recently.

The 25-year-old resident of San Jose, California, says he found the first one about three weeks ago on his Volvo SUV while visiting his mother in Modesto, about 80 miles northeast of San Jose. After contacting Wired and allowing a photographer to snap pictures of the device, it was swapped out and replaced with a second tracking device. A witness also reported seeing a strange man looking beneath the vehicle of the young man’s girlfriend while her car was parked at work, suggesting that a tracking device may have been retrieved from her car.

Then things got really weird when police showed up during a Wired interview with the man.

The young man, who asked to be identified only as Greg, is one among an increasing number of U.S. citizens who are finding themselves tracked with the high-tech devices.

The Justice Department has said that law enforcement agents employ GPS as a crime-fighting tool with “great frequency,” and GPS retailers have told Wired that they’ve sold thousands of the devices to the feds.

Wired