Repulsion gave way to intrigue, intrigue to gratification, and now I’m back to repulsion.
If you signed up for a driver monitoring program through your insurance company then you may know what I’m talking about.
At first, my gut reaction was to refuse any monitoring devices in my personal trucks and car.
“The whole Big Brother thing. We get it,” my car insurance agent said when I first objected to the idea.
But then I thought about the trucking industry and how drivers are constantly monitored relative to how they handle a large Class 8 truck. I thought about my own personal fleet and how my kids and I might measure up when coolly observed and scored by software. Would my daughter outscore my son and me? Would the device unmercifully sting us on every driving error, kill my discount and throw us all into a high-risk pool with increased premiums?
If nothing else, I thought, a program like this would provide good insight into the growing world of driver performance analytics and might lead to a story or two. And, as my agent said, I could always turn off Bluetooth on my phone or just yank out the tracker if I got tired of being watched--okay, maybe watch is too strong a word. More like shrewdly observed based on various metrics that indicate--then again, maybe watch is the right word.
