Acme Car Rental in New Haven has implimented the GPS driven AirIQ System, tracking your every move..
July 12, 2001 1:41 PM   Subscribe

Acme Car Rental in New Haven has implimented the GPS driven AirIQ System, tracking your every move.. Apparently able to map everywhere you drive and at what speed. If you exeed the speed limit, your credit card is automatically billed. The rental car can also be remotely disabled, all from a central server running the AirIQ software. Now where did I leave that Trojan......
posted by metasak (14 comments total)
 
Wasn't this deemed illegal by a court recently? I know we've discussed this topic recently, anyway.
posted by starvingartist at 1:47 PM on July 12, 2001


old news. and the speeding ticket issued has been overruled.

see:
http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/8761

http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/8486
posted by chrisege at 1:47 PM on July 12, 2001


ouch
ok fine... I ran a search...
Sorry I don't have the Mefi cortex jack yet
posted by metasak at 2:42 PM on July 12, 2001


I believe the poster is focusing on the guts of the system (AirIQ) rather than the Acme issue itself.
posted by chrish at 2:47 PM on July 12, 2001


just wanted to point out again that:

a) they own the car, they can do what they want.

b) you can go somewhere else to rent a car as well.
posted by jcterminal at 4:00 PM on July 12, 2001


That's true, jcterminal. My landlord also owns my apartment. I'd rather he not put cameras in it. Of course, if every landlord did this, well, I'd be screwed, wouldn't I?
posted by Doug at 4:29 PM on July 12, 2001


Actually Doug, the proper analogy for the apartment would be if the landlord rented you the apartment and told you ahead of time that it had cameras installed.
And an even better analogy would be instead of cameras, illegal-drug-detectors.
posted by Grum at 8:55 PM on July 12, 2001


Ahh. The smell of old news.

Anyway, I love this system. It takes the worst dumb-fuckery out of driving.
posted by pracowity at 11:03 PM on July 12, 2001


Never minding the nit picking, Doug puts a fine point on why this merits attention at all... the other companies start doing it, suddenly you have a paradyne shift, and you're stuck with this crapy service.

I remember a time when airline stewardesses had to be hot, and look what they've done to that.
I had a guy giving me peanuts on my last flight.
A guy.
And he had to wear the blouse, too, just like the ladies, all of whom where senior citizens. A guy, with big hairy manhands, and tufts of arm hair sticking out through his blouse sleeves.
I had to pay 600 bucks for this.
posted by dong_resin at 11:07 PM on July 12, 2001


Those wacky paradyne shifts again.

Why do I feel the need to criticize others and tell them they're wrong when I'm so damn drunk? Mostly I'm so verrry wrong.
posted by BoatMeme at 11:50 PM on July 12, 2001


Yes, I used the wrong word. I was gonna correct myself, but I thought it would take up worthless space. This is much better.
posted by dong_resin at 12:09 AM on July 13, 2001


> And an even better analogy would be instead of
> cameras, illegal-drug-detectors.

No, it's better to say that a rented car is like a seat on a train or a plane, or a ride in an elevator. You are in a public place in a rented space. Just because they let you play engineer for the day doesn't mean that you have the right to drive the train like an idiot.

And I think they should record people singing to the car radio and sell them to comedy shows.
posted by pracowity at 12:25 AM on July 13, 2001


Well, no, of course not.
A bit hot
I mean he was a guy.
steaming hot.
And I'm a guy, so, well, you know...
relax, don't do it, when you wanna sock it to it
Uh....


Damn you, Cray.
Why must I be so suggestible?!

Thanksgiving is gonna suck this year.
posted by dong_resin at 11:52 AM on July 13, 2001


Grum, That's not true. First, yes, the landlord would have to tell me before hand. That's fine. But these instruments measures a lot more than just the fact that you're speeding. They track where you've been, how long you were there, etc....
And the analogy was in response to jcterminal, who said that consumers have the option of going to a rental car company that doesn't do this. And he's right....for now. Probably not for long, though.
posted by Doug at 12:56 PM on July 13, 2001


« Older   |   The Economics of Aesthetics Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments