Washington Votes Forum

Once again the legislature is protecting the "rights" of criminals, law-breakers, and the foolish at the expense of the the reasonable and normal citizens who will have to pay higher insurance premiums because the insurance companies can not use accurate and objective data to deny claims to people who were at fault in an accident.

You could also codify that the driver "owns" the picture of his car driving through a red light so that picture from a traffic camera can not be used as evidence to prosecute for that danger.  Why not? Think of the "rights" of the red-light runner!

This is an overdue measure to protect people's privacy.  It's no more an crutch for criminals that the US Constitution's 4th Amendment.  And as far as insurance companies go, if they have a right to this information they might as well have a right to analyze your DNA before they issue you health insurance. The only thing lacking in this bill seems to be a specific limitation on the state's access to this data.

First, the Fourth Amendment protects against government searches, not private companies looking at data in vehicles that they have paid for.  Second it only protects against unreasonable searches.  We might have a disagreement about what is reasonable but I think that an insurance company to which I pay premiums might reasonably want to verify that any claims that they pay out were for "accidents", not illegal or stupid acts of the person who caused the problem.

I would suggest that if the culprit who was doing something wrong when he or she crashed, always has the ability to refuse to submit a claim and does not need to transfer title of the wreck to his or her insurance company.  Then the insurance company does not buy the vehicle to gain access and I don't have to pay with my increased premiums..