Car insurance rates in the US have spiked by around 26% overall in the past year. The government has been pushing for everyone to go electric and trade, spending tens of thousands more for an electric vehicle, which always comes equipped with monitoring software. Even older cars with basic features like OnStar have tracking devices that report your driving behavior to the manufacturers who share your data with insurance companies and, ultimately, the government.
As for costs, Bankrate released a report that found drivers are now paying an additional $212 monthly fee ($2,543 annually) for car insurance. CBS noted that is about 3.41% of the median household salary based on the latest data from the US Census Bureau. Other states, such as Florida, have seen spikes so outrageous that the average Floridian spends 6% of their take-home on car insurance alone. Insurance companies blame hurricanes and natural disasters, but they have always been a naturally occurring phenomenon that were already priced in. Missouri saw the largest hike in premiums after auto insurance soared by 40% in one single year.
Inflation alone cannot be the culprit. LexisNexis, which tracks drivers’ behaviors and compiles risk profiles, has been sharing individual data with General Motors, who passes that information along to the insurance companies. One driver demanded that LexisNexis send him his personal report, which was a 258-page document containing every trip he or his wife took in his vehicle over a six-month period. LexisNexis said that this data will be used “for insurers to use as one factor of many to create more personalized insurance coverage.” They even reported small issues such as hard breaking and rapid acceleration, according to the report. “I don’t know the definition of hard brake. My passenger’s head isn’t hitting the dash,” an unnamed Cadillac driver enrolled in the OnStar Smart Driver subscription service told reporters.
One of the main successful components of Tesla is its ability to track user data. Its GPS tool calculates every lane of every road across the globe to enable the autonomous driving feature. Kevin O’Leary chastised his son for supporting and finding employment with Tesla, but his son then explained to him that Tesla was far more than an EV company. “Consider it a data company,” O’Leary’s son explained.
Now, I am not saying that Tesla specifically shares this information with the government. But the data is being passed along from the user to the manufacturer and then the insurance companies. Governments globally want to remove gas cars from the road and plan to prohibit new vehicles from using fossil fuels. Government wants a slice of that profit and numerous studies have found that drivers have absolutely no control over their data.
Data, the one item Congress nearly unanimously agreed upon when it came to a social media platform compared to the wide variety of actually dangerous data sharing issues. Studies have shown that cars may be susceptible to hacking. “Cars have microphones and people have all kinds of sensitive conversations in them. Cars have cameras that face inward and outward,” a researcher with Mozilla Foundation told the Los Angeles Times. In fact, 19 automakers in 2023 admitted that they have the ability to sell your personal data without notice. Law enforcement may subpoena these records as well.
These extremely deceptive and invasive practices are becoming commonplace. The people no longer trust governments, and governments no longer trust the people. This is a global issue as the elites everywhere are in a panic to regain control over an increasingly unruly public.
