Something that I was shocked to read about today was that some of the best selling cars in Britain can be broken in to in under three seconds, according to The consumer group Which?.
Although some car crime is premeditated, the vast majority of car crime is opportunistic carried out due to possessions being left on show.
Back in February 2007 thefts of satellite navigation devices from cars had soared by 35 percent in a 12 month period. The smash-and-grab culture was hitting Britain. People were finding their car windows being smashed and contents removed when their car was parked outside their homes and, in some more worrying instances, when they were waiting at traffic lights. I now lock my car doors if I am driving alone so that my bag can’t be stolen or my car carjacked.
As the majority of car crime is opportunistic there are things that we can do as car owners to try and prevent our car being broken in to or stolen.
You can have a car alarm or immobiliser installed and use steering locks as a visible deterrent to car thieves. And one of the most important things that we all can do is to keep all belongings out of sight. Leaving bags, laptops, money, jewelry, satellite navigation systems etc on view is like a written invitation.
It is also essential that you remember to remove any suction pads or cradle supports off the windscreen or dashboard as these will give thieves a clear indication that certain equipment is used in the car.
We can do our best to try and beat the thieves but sometimes all our best efforts will be in vain. So the next best thing we can do is make sure that our car insurance covers us against car theft. Swiftcover now offers their car insurance customers the optional additional benefit of Gadget Cover. You can insure your personal electrical items, e.g. mobile phones, satellite navigation, Ipods, digital cameras, if stolen from the car or if damaged accidentally whilst with the car.
Over a year ago Swiftcover were openly supporting Peter Roberts’, a member of the Association of British Drivers, petition to scrap the vehicle tracking and road pricing policy that was being proposed. Nearly two million people felt strongly enough to sign an online petition at Downing Street. The good news is that in Ruth Kelly’s announcement on road charging on the 4th March there was no mention on this policy so the petition appears to have had the desired effect.
But there is still the very real, troubling and frustrating problem of congestion on our roads. So what have Ruth Kelly and her team come up with? Well the solution appears to lie in the United States. Ruth Kelly announced that drivers are going to be given the option of paying to use a faster lane and thus avoiding the traffic congestion in the other lanes. The plan is to either use the hard shoulder at peak commuter times or add more lanes to our motorways. The cost of building the extra lanes would be considerable, disruptive and take a long time so the use of the hard shoulder is the cheaper and quicker option. Ruth Kelly described this solution as “a nifty over-taking manoeuvre past stationary traffic”. The Times reports that in America they have similar lanes which are dubbed ‘Lexus Lanes’ as they are perceived to only be affordable to the wealthier driver.
According to BBC News, sensors will detect the traffic build up which will then trigger signs telling the drivers to slow down and use the extra lane. The natural concern would be emergency services getting through to accidents so emergency refuges would be set up at 500m intervals.
The other solution is to have car sharing lanes. The Daily Mail reports that special cameras will be installed which can monitor the number of people travelling in a vehicle. If someone is travelling on their own in their car, they will have to pay to use a lane that is reserved for vehicles with two or more occupants.
Miss Kelly defended her new policy, “There is a compelling argument for car-share or charged lanes, which have been used for some time in the U.S. In order to get maximum benefit, access to car-share lanes is limited to vehicles carrying passengers, or single drivers willing to pay a toll. I intend to explore the possibility for taking a similar approach here where we are adding new capacity”.
Nowadays, owning a car is a very expensive necessity. You have the initial outlay for the car of your choice, the annual costs of services, taxes, and insurance and we also have to suffer with the ever increasing cost of petrol. I passed my local petrol station this morning and saw that a litre of petrol will now cost a staggering £1.05. Unfortunately there is very little, if anything, that we can do to influence our costs for services, taxes and petrol but we can make a difference on our car insurance premiums.
According to research carried out by Sainsbury Bank the average car insurance premium in 2007 increased by 5.24%. Similarly, research from comparison site Moneysupermarket showed an increase in premiums of 4.5% during the second half of 2007.
Swiftcover.com published an article yesterday stating that UK motorists are collectively paying £1.9 billion over the odds for car insurance, mostly due to motorists not shopping around at the time of renewal.
So what can we do to keep the costs down?
The first lesson is to always shop around when your car insurance is due and remember if you buy online you are more likely to save money. Other ways include ensuring your car is as secure as possible by using an alarm or immobilizer, parking on a drive or in a garage to minimize the risk of an accident whilst your car is parked in the road and not paying for unnecessary insurance add ons like cover for driving abroad.
There are lots of other ways to get cheap car insurance quote. Sky Money, MSN and Swiftcover.com have all published articles recently with their top tips.
If you are looking at buying a new car it is worth considering buying a hybrid car like the Honda Civic, Honda Insight or Lexus RX. Many insurance companies offer a discount on these cars so not only would you be saving yourself some money, you would also be doing your bit for the environment.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning we were hit by our worst Earthquake for nearly 25 years. The epicentre was near to Market Rasen, Lincolnshire where the earthquake registered 5.2 on the richter scale.
The previous big earthquake to hit us was in Lleyn Peninsula which registered 5.4 on the richter scale back in 1984. I was surprised to read that according to the British Geological Survey there are as many as 200 earthquakes in the UK each year with only 25 of these being felt by residents, thank goodness!
Such a rare occurrence can lead to some ambiguity regarding whether you are covered for damage to your home or car under your home and car insurance policies. According to reports in The Guardian online, Malcolm Tarling, the general insurance spokesperson for the Association of British Insurers (ABI) says that buildings insurance will cover damage to the structure of your property and contents insurance will cover any items within it. If you have fully comprehensive motor insurance then you should be covered for any damage to your car.
I would like to stress however, that the ABI doesn’t regulate insurers so the best thing to do is to read your policy wording and contact your insurance company directly. In the meantime if you have suffered any damage make sure that it is protected by the elements as there is heavy rain forecast for Friday…
If you’ve seen the film ‘Cars’then you might remember the scene where Lightening McQueen ends up caught up in power lines - an entanglement that finally enables the chasing police car to capture him.
Couldn’t happen in real life? Think again - as this news report shows. Far from it being for me to comment on this, but for the record, I will note that according to the police the driver was a woman, a senior citizen, an illegal immigrant and had neither a licence or car insurance!
Anyway, aside from the 4,000 local residents who temporarily lost power to their homes, there was no harm done. She was apparently unhurt and having been released from jeopardy by fire-fighters she was - according to the report - released from custody by the police.
Let’s hope that when she is eventually appears in court, she just gets the bus…
All these icy mornings make car journeys all the more hazardous and one of the extra things to allow time for before setting off is defrosting the windows. If feeling particularly sensitive to my fellow passengers, I might also warm the car engine up and get some warm air circulating around the car interior so that it’s a bit more pleasant inside.
There’s two things that I am guilty of that could lead to trouble however: the first is my habit of pouring boiling water over the windscreen as a quick way of defrosting it…As my car gets older and my free time gets less and less, I have come to a less than scientific conclusion - that there is not going to be any damage caused to the paintwork since at the point the hot water touches the frozen surface, the temperature of the water is immediately reduced and thus no harm done.
All was well until the other day when a passer-by called out - “hey - you shouldn’t be doing that”. Now, on the basis that a) I own both the car and kettle b) surely can’t be adding to global warming c) didn’t have the time or inclination to engage in conversation - I never did get to the bottom of why this was such a bad thing to do. Any clues, anyone? Will I really damage the paintwork?
The other potential cause of trouble is connected to heating the car up and leaving the car unattended with engine running. I tend not to actually do this but I do sometimes see cars left this way, and wonder how many actually get stolen by early-rising, opportunistic thieves? My understanding is that in such a scenario you wouldn’t be covered by your car insurance since your insurer would take a dim view of you leaving the car unattended with the keys in the ignition.
New government plans revealed recently could mean that speeding motorists get six points (and a £100 fine) instead of the current three points (and a £60 fine). This increased tariff could mean drivers being banned after just two instances of driving over the speed limit - having duly accumulated 12 points.
Is this a good thing? Will it help drive home the message that ‘thou shalt not speed’? Or, are we just going to see thousands of perfectly safe drivers banned, fined and forced to pay increased insurance premiums?
It’s a hard one to answer: on one hand there is the argument - forwarded by motoring campaign group Safe Speed -that going over the speed limit does not automatically make you a dangerous driver, yet, on the other hand there is the simple arguement that rules are rules - break them and pay the consequences.
It is worth noting that amidst the furore, and ahead of the planned government consultation, Jim Fitzpatrick the Transport Minister did note that the six point punishment was intended only for those who are excessively speeding - not just drifting over the limit, but way beyond it, so say 45mph in a 30mph zone, 70mph in a 50 zone, and 94mph in a 70mph zone. On this basis, the proposal does seem to have merit: at these speeds we are surely not talking about careful drivers but ones with no heed for the legal limits, who presumably believe it to be safe, or else a worthwhile or acceptable risk, to drive way over the limit. Surely, were this to be introduced, this could only help make our roads safer? Let’s see what emerges from the consultation…
The government has recently announced that they are going to roll out the use of the hard-shoulder on motorways at peak driving times. After a year of testing on the M42 the scheme is going to be soon extended to other motorways including the M1, M4, M6, M25 and M40.
The announcement raises a few questions
including whether the use of these previously empty lanes will hinder the work of the emergency services (although The Highways Agency insists it won’t) and, as claimed by Friends of the Earth, whether this “motorway widening by stealth” will simply attract more cars and cause even more carbon dioxide emissions.
Can the two battles - one against gridlock, the other against environmental damage - both be won? And will lives be lost if, say, ambulances or helicopters aren’t able to reach an accident scene because of a blocked hard shoulder.
Whatever the government’s priorities one thing is for sure: allowing us to use the hard shoulder is a less expensive option than stumping up the money to add an extra new lane….
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the speed limit on residential roads. First, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) came out last week and said they were in favour of dropping the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph, and that this would halve the number of road deaths.
So far so good, unless you are the Association of British Drivers (ABD) who claim that 20mph will see more accidents.
The reason? Well, according to Nigel Humphries, ABD spokesperson: “Concentration, alertness, and observation are fundamental factors required for safe driving, which are maximised by the driver setting a speed appropriate for the prevailing road conditions. Forcing drivers to travel below an appropriate speed is therefore detrimental to road safety.” Apparently, the concern is that drivers will spend so much more time reading their speedometer to ensure that they are not breaking the 20mph limit that they will be more likely to not be looking at the road ahead.
Opposing these views, some might argue that drivers get a feel for the speed they are travelling at and will quickly know what 20mph feels like or that it only takes a fraction of a second to glance at one’s speed. Others might argue that the ticketing process can allow for a 2-3mph margin of error, and that in any case statistics show that at 20mph, the results of being hit by a car are far less likely to be serious as at 30mph (serious injury likely) or 40mph (death likely). Yet then, ABD come back with more concerns namely that “a 20 mph speed limit will cause more congestion and increase vehicle emissions” and that (anti-speed cam lobbyists) “Safe Speed has already pointed out that DfT figures for 2006 show that there were more killed or seriously injured casualties in 20 mph zones than in 30 mph zones.”
They say that in war, the first casualty is the truth - and as the residential speed limit debate rages it will be interesting to see what issues are drawn into the battleground. Saving lives and money sounds good, but will this be at the expense of the environment? Doubtless we are likely to see all manner of statistics bandied about in the coming months. Before it gets too out of hand though, it might be worth noting that average car speeds in the UK have just been are reported to be amongst the slowest in Europe (London at 11.8mph is the slowest with Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol and Belfast all averaging under 20mph).
In this scenario, you have to wonder whether an official reduction from 30 to 20mph would actually make much difference!
I saw this on Times Online via their blog The Click. It’s a public service commercial from Australia which seeks to persuade men not to speed when driving. Rather than persuade drivers that slower driving will protect pedestrians or other road users in case of a collision, this appeals purely to the self-esteem of the driver, seemingly suggesting that men from Down Under that speed are seen by women as somewhat less than adequate, er, Down Under.
Do visit The Click blog to view their other clips of weird and wonderful things including ‘Human Tetris’ but here is that Aussie ad - we’ve gone and found it on You Tube, so you don’t have to…
