Insurance Black box at fault

25 July 2012

Black boxes are actually clever telematic systems that have been hailed as a breakthrough for young motorists. These systems run by satellites, keep an eye on the whereabouts of a car is and its driving speed etc, thus keeping the irresponsible drivers in check.

But there are drivers who have found these Insurance black boxes logging false events and records. These false recordings are being acknowledged by the Association of British Insurers as teething problems but believe that even with these malfunctioning; these black boxes are doing a good job. But drivers have complained that even when driving with extreme care and cautions, the Black box is picking up penalties and this definitely doesn’t motivate safe driving, as they believe.

According to a spokesman from Autosaint, the root cause behind the speeding penalty was caused by a satellite bug and which was taken care of. The sat-navs wrongly get confused about the whereabouts of the car or which road is it on and gets false beep alerts. But these errors are very sporadic and according to him, acceleration and harsh braking instances shouldn’t be looked upon in segregation. But drivers are not convinced as they keep picking penalties even when driving with utmost care.

The problem is that not everyone checks their black box logs and these false recordings and data may not be that rare anymore. And moreover, the onus lies on the driver to keep a track of the records and get their name cleared. But as per Autosaint, bugs if any have been fixed in the system and such inaccurate data and recording s will be very rare. Although there is no legal binding with any insurance company to share the telematics information, but the plus point is that Autosaint is quick to respond and take responsibility and can be reviewed online. Still, the motorists using black box systems should keep checking their driving logs and bring into notice any false readings. There is scope to improve the accuracy of any system and it is important that honest and good drivers motorists don’t get penalized falsely.

About the black box

Auto insurance companies often employ several methods to find the premiums that need to be charged from the customers and black box is a popular tool that is used by these insurance companies. The device is installed in the car and keeps an eye on the driving actions of the owner.