I like the idea but I would need to save a lot of money to put one of those in my car. If the device had a real time MPG meter that would sweeten the deal, save gas and insurance.

This is one of those things that seems like a good idea, but has "slippery slope" written all over it.

When does it go from being optional to being required to get a decent rate? And from there, to becoming mandatory in order to be insured at all?

How soon before your habits, and not your record, becomes the arbiter of how high your rates are? Or even being able to get insurance at all?

One has to remember that the goals of the insurance companies and ours do not coincide. They want to pay as few claims as possible, so cutting miles (as mentioned in the article) and getting everyone to drive 15 in a 25 (fewer accidents) would suit them just fine.

Do we really want yet another corporate big brother looking over our shoulders?

Good points, Michael.

Still, though, how many people NEED big brothers (corporate and govermental) to keep watch. Too many, evidently, as can be seen by the people driving like freakin' idiots at high speed in residential areas with kids all around. They simply don't think about others, or even themselves (beyond their narrow-minded immediate wants).

And those of us who are responsible are paying for their claims.

This is a perfectly fine idea, but there is a critical flaw: Most people speed most of the time and won't want to be tracked doing such. Indeed, the speed limits are set with the intention of typical drivers exceeding them. I have never seen anyplace, in my entire life, where free-flowing traffic averaged under the limit. Five-over is normal, and we all know it.

I hate this method of setting speed limits, which in principle makes almost everyone a criminal and teaches disrespect for the law. There is no reason the limits could not be raised ten miles an hour, and if you were over by even one, you could be busted with no excuses about calibration or anything else. If you are worried about that, just stay five under and you will never ever have a problem.

I'd rather pay for their claims than have Big Brother in my car.

I think this is a wonderful development. There are some areas where we want the pooling of risk to be as wide and deep as possible, such as health care. The problem in health care is that when insurers can pick off the young and healthy (as they're motivated to do), it leaves a pool of elderly and chronically ill people behind to pay enormous premiums and deductibles. In the driving context, however, I applaud every step toward putting greater insurance burden on people who drive faster, more dangerously, and more often.

From what I have read this device, scangauge II, not only gives you real time MPG but allows you to get error codes from you car (1996+) and clear the check engine light. I am still debating whether or not to get this nice little device just to know my accelerating sweet spot that gives me the best performance for the mpg hit. Oh and you can hoot it up to your computer and track your trip data; I think this would be useful to analyze leaving work at 4:00 p..m where there is traffic compared to leaving work at 3:00 p.m. when there is less traffic.

Meh. The best way to improve mileage is to get rid of, or bypass, most of the pollution control devices on the engine. Lose the catalytic converter for a free flow exhaust system, get a K&N intake system, and use a flash tuner to reprogram the engine management system.

On the other hand, you'll end up with so much more useable horsepower, you'll have so much fun, you'll forget all about gas mileage. Fuel mileage is for sissy-boys.

If all these people are getting reduced rates, then to make the same amount of money the insurance companies are eventually going to have to charge the people without these things more. Maybe I'm wrong, but it will cost you double to choose to not have one once they catch on.

And to answer Davids question about who needs big brother? Nobody does. Do traffic cameras slow people down? Do CCTV's stop robberies?

Once again a poor solution for a bigger problem.

'Do traffic cameras slow people down? Do CCTV's stop robberies?'

---You can't be serious? It has been more than proven that traffic cameras do lead to a siginificant drop in the number of people speeding and the amount of speeding and that CCTVs lead to a significant drop in number of robberies and the level of violence in robberies (in the areas where there are cameras). Your use of these examples to 'prove' your point was counter-productive; all they do is support the argument you are against.

I guess next you will claim that police are not needed since they do not stop (all) crime and that traffic lights are not needed since (some) people zoom past them when red.

Not only no, but hell no. How long before they become "required" to get insurance and things like, we're raising your rate because you go into that neighborhood, or you were driving in the middle of night etc. Pre-emptive laws should be passed preventing insurance companies using these punitively.

Most insurance companies already offer a low-mileage tier. If you haven't checked it out with your company, do so! I used to get it with State Farm (they have an under-7500 miles version), and then switched to GEICO, who offers an under-3000 miles per year discount. The savings from moving to the under-3000 miles plan was *huge*. I just have to send them my odometer reading every year; no device to install. (Perhaps these programs let you save even more?)

Oh, and re Scanguage: It's great for gas mileage. Once you have a little display of your MPG, it's almost irresistable *not* to optimize it. Because of how little I drive, there's a very long payback time, but using it has changed my driving habits enough to improve my mileage by about 20%.