Most teens looking for auto insurance know that auto insurance rates for teenagers can be very high. However, although rates are generally higher, you can always find a cheap car insurance for teens-if you just know where to look.
Auto insurance for teens is designed to protect young drivers in particular. Unlike other insurance policies that usually has a higher interest rate. inexperienced young drivers. They may have passed the test, but are new to driving.For an insurance company, this means that the probability of an accident is very high.Now, one could say that anyone regardless of age, which happens only your driving test is a responsibility. However, statistically not the case and that is what insurers look. Young drivers are twice as likely to have an accident in their first year of driving, the driver under
DriveMeCrazy, a new service which went live earlier this week is an accident just waiting to happen. The idea, of using an app to report bad drivers sounds good, until you dig into the details.
DriveMeCrazy was developed by Shazam co-founder Philip Inghelbrecht. The voice activated iPhone app allows anyone to give "virtual tickets" to bad drivers. If the violator has the app installed on his iPhone, he will see he's been flagged.
That's just the start of the bad news for the miscreant: the same information, including date, time and location of the "moving violation," is sent to the DMV and insurance companies.
Inghelbrecht says he sees not privacy issues with the service. He hopes to reduce auto accidents through the use of the app. He said:
“People think they can do bad things on the road because they think they can get away with it. I believe that driving is one of the most public acts that you could ever do. One small mistake can impact the lives of those around you. [...]
“The ability for monetization is actually really strong,” he said. “I don’t want to get into too much detail, but essentially if people report driving behavior of their fellow motorists, you’re building a database of driver information.”
Therein lies the key to the service. Although Inghelbrecht says he hopes to reduce accident rates by 1 to 2 percent by 2020, he seems most interested in creating a database that can be sold to insurance company. It's unclear that insurance companies would be interested. Nationwide Insurance said:
“Auto-insurance rates are filed with state regulators and must include consistent definitions for the activities that will vary costs for consumers. Because each individual who would observe another driver’s performance would have a unique perspective about what might be safe behaviors, it would be difficult to use information reported by the general public.”
That is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of problems. For example:
Since you have to activate the iPhone to run the app, that distracts you from driving. It would be truly ironic to see a DriveMeCrazy user cause an accident when trying to report "bad" driving.
The app uses voice recognition to enter the license plate number. In a car with all the noise of driving and possibly the stereo, it would be easy to flag an innocent driver.
Only iPhone users can enough know if they've been flagged, and only if they have the app, as well.
This would seem to be the perfect way to get back at say, an ex-girlfriend (or boyfriends) or for teens to cyberbully someone.
It's unclear how the app will deal with families who share a car, as only the license plate info is captured.
Let's say someone cuts off someone else. We can see one car pursuing another, perhaps weaving in and out of traffic and endangering lives as the DriveMeCrazy user tries to see the license plate.
Of course, given enough complaints, it's possible Apple might boot this from the App Store. So far, the comments and reviews about the app are divided, so time will tell.
Update: I received an email from Philip Inghelbrecht, the founder of DriveMeCrazy. He addressed many of my concerns and criticisms in the email. I've added it below.
Hi Michael – thanks for the article. I notice the many good questions and wanted to quickly provide you (and your readers) with an answer.
The app is designed in a way that only requires a single touch of a (big) button on the screen. The rest is voice-driven (even with surrounding noise – try it out). We tested the user experience extensively, and even had people from road-safety organizations and government agencies giving us feedback. The overwhelming response is that DriveMeCrazy imposes minimal distraction, definitely less than dialing 1800-EXHAUST, 511 for traffic, 911 for drunk drivers, or even fiddling with your car radio.
We have numerous checks & balances in place to detect malicious use (including bullying), and remove suspicious flags accordingly. A next version of the app will provide the flagger with instant feedback as to whether a flag is rejected or accepted.
I agree with you that everybody should be able to check their driving record. Unlike the credit scoring companies or even the DMVs, we will do this for free and instantaneous. To that extent, DriveMeCrazy will soon be on Android and boast a more elaborate web interface. You are also correct to point out that families share vehicles; then again, if someone within the family were to drive irresponsibly, wouldn’t other family members want to know about that (e.g. husband/wife, parents/children, etc)?
For insurance companies to use our data, we would need to be legally approved (which is obviously not the case). As such, DriveMeCrazy data is not used to set premiums today. We of course do hope that it helps point out the potentially dangerous drivers on the road. Similar programs have been effective, e.g. trucks with How’s My Driving decals (citing up to 30% less accidents) and HERO in Washington state (lowest carpool violation rate in the country). DriveMeCrazy merely leverages the smartphone as a new platform and I suspect few people will object to safer roads; personally I do hope that DriveMeCrazy can help us towards that goal.
I hope this was helpful. Check out our FAQ (http://drivemecrazy.mobi/faq.php) or just ping me if you have more questions.
Two lawsuits in the so-called "laptop webcam spying" incident involving the Lower Merion School District (LMSD) in Pennsylvania have been settled, for $610,000. Two students and their families had sued the school district in the case some called "WebcamGate," after it was discovered that school-issued Apple MacBooks secretly took thousands of pictures of pupils.
The system had been put into place as a method to recover lost or stolen computers. However, the students, Blake Robbins and Jalil Hassan, reportedly had hundreds of images of themselves taken by the software, TheftTrack. In the settlement, Robbins will receive $175,000, Hassan $10,000, and their lawyer $425,000.
The impact of this settlement to the district and the fact that most of the settlement went to the lawyer highlighted the problem that other LMSD parents had with the Robbins' lawsuit: with school districts facing budget cuts, could the family not have settled the dispute without a lawsuit?
The LMSD issued a statement on the settlement. The district decided to settle once their insurance company agreed it would cover the costs:
A major impetus behind settling this matter now is the recent agreement by our insurance carrier, Graphic Arts, to cover more than $1.2M of the fees and costs associated with this litigation to date. The proposed settlement costs include $175,000 to be placed in a trust for Blake Robbins, $10,000 for Jalil Hassan and $425,000 for plaintiff's counsel. This settlement is not under seal because as a public entity, we have a responsibility to report all terms of the agreement.
Although we would have valued the opportunity to finally share an important, untold story in the courtroom, we recognize that in this case, a lengthy, costly trial would benefit no one. It would have been an unfair distraction for our students and staff and it would have cost taxpayers additional dollars that are better devoted to education. We also wanted to be sensitive to the welfare of the student involved in the case, given the possible ramifications of what would have been a highly-publicized trial.
After the lawsuits were filed, the LMSD halted the use of TheftTrack. It continued to distribute the MacBooks, however.
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Most teens looking for auto insurance know that auto insurance rates for teenagers can be very high. However, although rates are generally higher, you can always find a cheap car insurance for teens-if you just know where to look. 
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