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Is Your Car Spying on You?
Cars have gradually changed into surveillance devices. Vehicle tracking and data monetization was pioneered by General Motors with their OnStar cellular telematics in 1996. While initially built for emergencies and concierge services, it established the precedent of cars having built-in cellular connections. By the mid-2010s automakers installed Wi-Fi, infotainment systems and companion smartphone apps. These allowed precise GPS tracking, monitoring driving habits and even inside-the-cabin behavior.
In recent years your driving data such as speeding, hard braking, and late-night driving, is collected and sold to data brokers and insurers. This is a windfall for the car makers. Easy money. They take that money with a smile as you are sold down the river. They don’t care about your privacy or rights. Teams of lawyers craft convoluted obtuse language into opt-in terms to make it legal. Most people blindly accept without trying to read it.
Why would your insurer buy your data? To reward you and reduce your premiums? No. They are looking for any excuse to charge you more. Or to cancel your policy. They decide this without telling you. You find out when your next statement shows a higher price or a notification bidding you farewell. There is no warning, courtesy call or argument. You pay or try to get another insurer. That new insurer buys the same data and may refuse to accept you. You are trapped.
New car buyers are finding out they have less control of their own cars. Lane-keeping assist decides you have drifted out of your lane. Perhaps to avoid a pothole or muffler that fell off the car in front of you and is heading at high speed towards your face. You find yourself struggling to regain control. Automatic braking suddenly slams on the brakes at 70 mph because it saw a ghost. Every year more intrusive “helpful safety” systems are added. They make decisions through sensors and software that are often unproven and unreliable. You are just along for the ride.
Next up is technology that decides whether you are “fit” to drive. The kill switch is there to protect you. Nothing to see here, move along. You are not drunk. You are weary from a long day at work, a mild cold or a sore leg from the gym. An AI far away looks at you, runs some algorithm computer code and says sorry. Your car shuts off or won’t start. You will have no recourse. You can be stranded in a remote area or on the side of the highway in a blizzard with nobody to call.
As a bonus, we tell you if your car can only be serviced at dealers, with parts not available on the aftermarket. Your best friends at the dealership can then charge whatever they want with no competition. This extortion racket is legal. Then there are features you paid for that become monthly fee subscriptions after the bait-and-switch free trial ends.
Search for your car, or one you are considering buying, and find out. Take control of your freedom, privacy and autonomy. It’s free.
The Road to Nowhere
Many of the technologies you see in cars are supposedly meant to improve safety and convenience. Maybe the hundreds of magic little computers and sensors will accomplish these worthy goals. But why all of a sudden can’t we learn to drive and pay attention? Do we need to be told to quit texting and stay in our lane? Do we need technology to parallel park? Even if we are dumbed down to these childish levels there will always be a catch. Technology is not perfect. The more you rely on it the greater your risk of living (or not living) with the consequences when it glitches, makes bad decisions and drives you off a cliff.
We are enamored by the newest gizmos. Many equate newer and more with better. They never knew or forgot the joy of simplicity, quality and reliability. The visceral feel of the machine on the road. The direct unfiltered mechanical connection. The pure joy learning to control and master it. The vehicle manufacturers collude with government regulators to justify every new innovation and make it mandatory. The former increase profits with pricier disposable cars. The latter justify their existence to get bigger budgets, money from taxpayers meaning from you.
Then there is the cost. Did you expect a free lunch? Car prices have risen to crazy heights beyond the means of most people. As simple accident becomes catastrophic when a $500 dent becomes $10,000 when all those cameras and sensors are involved. Dealer-only diagnostic software. Parts which may take a long time to deliver while your car sits on some dusty lot. You of course still must make payments for a car you can’t drive. Computer technicians and no more friendly local mechanics. Labor rates higher than open-heart surgery. Insurers write off your car and double your premiums. Subscriptions instead of ownership. No more paid off car equity. Just endless debits on your credit cards.
The inevitable gradual skill erosion leading ever escalating cries for more tech to make up for sloth and the attention span of a toddler when a new toy is presented. This leads to more automation until we wake up, in the not-so-distant future, being driven around like cattle in a trailer on the way to the final happy meat factory by a robotic monstrosity. No more driving. No more freedom of the open road. The road that leads to nowhere.