28/11/2008

 
I've just searched the term 'car driving' in google news and rather depressingly, six out of the first ten stories returned told of bad driving in the UK. Is it any wonder that insurance for car drivers is expensive?

I carried out the search at 11.45am on Friday 28th November and the stories included a drunk-driver from Wales who caused death by dangerous driving, a woman charged with drink-driving who caused £50,000 of damage to a bungalow near King's Lynn, and another driver, an 18 year-old from Nottingham, who was also convicted of dangerous driving after an overtaking manoeuvre went badly wrong and he ended up needing lifesaving surgery.

In the most chilling of the reports, a 16-year-old girl was killed when the 17-year-old driver of the car she was a passenger in failed to negotiate a left hand bend. His vehicle careered off the road and collided with a brick wall. The young male driver was badly hurt and the other front seat passenger suffered life threatening injuries.

Also reported was an incident of extreme road rage. A van driver, who chased another motorist through Newton Abbot, was jailed for a year after pleading guilty to charges of affray and damage to property. A driving instructor who witnessed the event said, "They both stopped at traffic lights at Shaldon Bridge. The defendant got out screaming and tried to open the victim's car door. He punched the driver's window six times and kneed the side of the car."

And in the final negative driving-related story of the first ten results, a series of reports regarding Mercedes-Benz World told of their initiative to prevent some of the annual 27% of crashes involving work-related driving. They claim that courses for employees who drive as part of their job could make the roads a safer place.

The non-negative (sorry, I can't really call them positive) UK driving stories related to the building of the largest new and used Mini showroom in Britain, and a boy (yes, the piece actually called him a boy) aged 17, who had passed his driving test just in time to become the youngest driver in the world car rally championship.

Just what the world needs, another "boy" driving a killing machine and one more place that sells them.

And when I looked at the refreshed page approximately three hours later, there were four new stories of fatal car accidents and convictions for dangerous driving.

So I'm left feeling sombre and more than a touch angry because people still complain that the price of car insurance is too high. Surely, if we want our insurance for cars to be cheaper, we need to start thinking hard about road safety and driving behaviour. Perhaps Mercedes-Benz have got it right - additional training is the key. It's just a shame that it has to be these terrible reports and statistics that make us stop and think about the way we drive.

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21/11/2008

 

Car insurance quotes and hard times

Are we fed up of the credit crunch yet? I don't know about you, but I'm definitely tired of reading about money saving motoring tips; how pumping your tyres up will save you 8% fuel costs, or how riding a bike to work could reduce your travel expenses by £33.70 a week. However, it seems that in the cheap car insurance world is now gripped by a need to educate the driving community with pearls of wisdom on penny pinching at the petrol station and handy hints to reduce your car insurance quote.

For a while in the car insurance business there was relatively little news to tell about motor cover deals and car driving revelation, as all media interest was focused on churning out as many ways as possible of saying, "Money - we're stuffed!"

Now, several months into the financial furore of money munching cash catastrophe, and all alliteration spent, we're apparently possessed by a sudden urge to teach people how to drive in an economically prudent fashion, and suddenly it's a good idea not to get a motoring conviction because that will keep your car insurance quote down.

I'm sorry, but for me, it's always been a good time not to get a motoring conviction. Credit crunch or no credit crunch, the thought of having a policeman stop me and say, "Do you realise you just drove through a red light, madam?" fills me with legs-to-jelly dread.

There has been the odd occasion in my two decades of driving that I have mistaken speed cameras for roadside objets d'art and not taken my foot off the accelerator quickly enough, and this has inevitably been followed by several weeks of agonising as the postman approaches. I imagine that his thoughts of my social standing will plummet when he spots a letter from the police (or whoever it is that issues speeding fines) and there you have the crux of my point; on the three or so occasions that I have gone through a speed trap over the speed limit, I have not once been issued with a fine. Now is that luck, or are speed cameras just a vague governmental hope at deterring people from driving recklessly?

Anyway, it matters not as they are apparently being phased out in favour of "average speed" cameras, that will encourage drivers to travel at the appropriate speed for more of the time. And guess what, this will alleviate the environmental effect of the hard acceleration that occurs after the braking that inevitably happens before for a GATSO speed camera. So, it's a win-win situation for the government - slower driving and reduced fuel emissions all rolled into one revenue making scheme. I can see the slogan now - "Average speed cameras are good for our financial and your physical health."

Hurrah, our monetary worries are over and they've cured global warming to boot. So, drive on friends, and just in case you didn't know already, shopping around for your car insurance quote could also save you a few quid, or have we in the car insurance providing world already mentioned that one.

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