I'm an honest guy when it comes to my skills—or lack thereof—atdriving a car. This is a statement that not many men are willing tomake: “I'm not the greatest driver in the world.”

You'll notice I didn't say I was a lousy driver—that would be mywife who would say that—just not the world's greatest. Even toadmit such a thing is a violation of my man card, I know, but asall of us come closer to some type of usage-based insurance ortelematics, it is an issue we are all going to face.

I've been involved in my share of collisions over the years andI have to admit I believe I have nine lives when it comes todealing with other motorists who are impaired. Over the course ofmy driving career, my car has been struck by not one, not two, butthree drunk drivers, so I do know a thing or two about recognizinglousy drivers. I won't bore you with the details of the ones thatwere actually my fault.

Before too long, many of us are going to have to put our moneywhere our mouth is when it comes to our driving skills. In adiscussion concerning telematics that I had with Matt Josefowicz ofNovarica last week, he brought up the issue of drivers beingwilling to reject old underwriting methods and embracetelematics.

“A policyholder who is willing to be a telematics customer isalready an indicator theydon't mind being watched and are probablya better risk,” says Josefowicz. “It's one thing to say you're agood driver and another to put a machine in your car and validatethat.”

The fact that you are willing to embrace telematics may indeedmake an insurer believe you are a quality risk, but whether youactually are a good risk—even with a fairly clean driving record—isanother matter.

Have any of your friends ever admitted to being a poor driver? Iknow guys who have been in multiple accidents for which they werecited by the police, but still believe it was the fault of theother guy who was driving too slowly or some such excuse.

I might eventually opt for a usage-based policy and hope thatsomehow my driving has improved with age. That's probably aridiculous notion—sort of like my other plan to win the lottery topay for my retirement—but it's all I've got for now.

Technology marches on.