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January 14th, 2010 admin
Motorists have a year to get cover or face fines, even if their vehicles are not used. Are the new rules going too far, too fast?
Millions of uninsured motorists have until the end of the year to buy appropriate cover or face an unprecedented crackdown from police and the courts – including fines of up to £1,000 – even if their vehicle is not being driven.
Plans published recently by the Department for Transport (DfT) will soon make it an offence purely to be the registered keeper of an uninsured vehicle, while police will not have to prove it was in use.
The Continuous Insurance Enforcement proposals, due to be introduced in early 2011, will replace existing laws, whereby a prosecution can take place only if an uninsured motorist is caught at the wheel of a car. An initial penalty of £100 will be applied, followed by further fines of up to £1,000 levied by a magistrate’s court.
Implementation of the new rules in 2011 will allow those drivers who are not currently using their cars, and have left them uninsured for one year, to seek exemption by sorting out off-road storage and make a “statutory off-road notification” (Sorn). They will then also be exempted from vehicle tax. Those who already have a Sorn in place can continue to use this.
The plans come as official reports suggest that up to 2 million people a year drive while uninsured, with more than 10% of motorists in some urban areas – including London, Merseyside and Manchester – having no cover.
Automatic number plate recognition cameras, increasingly used on thousands of UK roads, traffic junctions and even petrol station forecourts, as well as “spy vans”, have led to thousands of people being stopped for having no insurance. Up to 500 cars a day are confiscated for not having insurance, of which 40% are crushed when their owners don’t pay the fine to get them back.
However, experts fear that in the recession many car owners may be tempted to cut back on “non-essential” items, such as motor cover. A recent poll by Moneysupermarket, the comparison website, found the number who admitted driving without cover at some stage rose from 15% in 2008 to 20% last year.
The Motor Insurers’ Bureau (Mib), which compensates up to 30,000 people a year who have been in accidents with uninsured drivers, welcomes the proposals, and groups including the Mib and the British Insurers Brokers Association (Biba) will spend the next few weeks lobbying politicians to make sure a change of government will not result in the plans being dropped.
This week Biba will will meet up with shadow secretary of state for transport, Theresa Villiers, to garner support from a possible future Conservative government and at the same time publish its manifesto for the year ahead, which will include a continued push for implementation of the new enforcement system.
“We will also be calling for a national campaign on motor insurance,” says Graeme Trudgill, technical director at Biba. “This is key to resolving what is a massive problem [uninsured driving].”
However, not everyone believes these measures will be effective. Hugh Bladon, a retired nursing home owner and a founder member of the Association of British Drivers, said: “The government is interfering with what you do in every aspect of your private life. If you have a nice camera, you don’t need to insure it. What the hell does it have to do with them if you choose not to insure a car, providing you are not using it on the road?”
Adrian Tink, motoring strategist at the RAC, pointed out: “What [the DfT] is trying to do is create a black and white situation. I can see the logic of it, but we need to make it clear how things will work so that innocent victims won’t get caught by this measure.”
Tink said one side-effect might be to penalise those in financial difficulties who want to keep their cars, but deliberately choose not to use them for a while and therefore don’t renew their cover.
Without off-street parking, it is impossible to “Sorn” a car, thereby falling foul of the new legislation. The DfT’s own figures estimate that 43% of households in Britain have neither a garage or a driveway, forcing car owners to park on the street. In London only 27% of homeowners have a garage.
An AA spokesman said: “We welcome the proposals but are concerned that the legislation should recognise that some people may innocently fall foul of the law if they inadvertently become uninsured, for example those who are hospitalised or out of the country for extended periods, or who change their car and the record change is delayed.”
Where to turn when insurance doesn’t cover an accident
The Motor Insurers’ Bureau was set up in 1946 to compensate the victims of negligent, uninsured or untraced motorists. But it also compensates those injured in accidents where cause cannot be established.
Jamie Dempsey, 28, who runs his own falconry business in Ayrshire, has no clear recollection of the accident that cost him his lower right leg almost eight years ago.
He does remember heading from his home into Kirkoswold, a nearby village, to have a drink with some friends. But when they decided to stay there he set off, at about midnight, to walk the two miles home.
Dempsey says: “I just saw a very bright light out of the corner of my eye and then I was hit by a very large articulated lorry. When I came to, there were policemen telling me to stay down.
“I was in a state of shock and tried to get up, but my lower leg was hanging on just by the flesh and I fell down again.”
Aside from his foot, which was too badly damaged to save, the accident also tore Jamie’s shoulder out of its socket and he had lacerations across other parts of his body. A lorry driver was subsequently prosecuted for drink-driving and leaving the scene of the accident. But, despite Dempsey’s blood being found on the vehicle, it was not possible to charge the driver with causing the accident – which meant he could not claim on the truck’s insurance policy.
Luckily, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau stepped in: “They have been very good to me, making interim payments, helping with my rehabilitation, including learning to drive a car and also setting up my falconry business.”
From : Guardian website
Car insurance can be reduced if you are a new driver by taking part in the PASS PLUS course. Many driving instructors in Bedford are registered to give the PASS PLUS course & some offer discounts on the cost. The insurance company will give a discount on the cost of your car insurance which will often cover the cost of the course aswell. Contact a driving school or driving instructor in Bedford to see if they offer the PASS PLUS course.
Posted in Bedford, Car Insurance, Driving, Driving Lessons, Pass Plus, Road Safety | 2 Comments »
October 2nd, 2009 admin
AN ELECTRONIC ‘spy-in-the-car’ could save lives and money for young drivers.
Drivers aged between 17 and 21 are being invited to take part in a pilot road safety scheme being launched to help them improve their driving skills and increase road safety.
The scheme, funded by the Cheshire Safer Roads Partnership, involves fitting a small sensor to a vehicle’s dashboard for 12 months.
The device is capable of measuring up to 120 different hazardous driving manoeuvres and transmits the data to a secure website where the drivers and their parents or guardians can review how they are driving using a simple traffic light system – good driving shows in green, bad in amber and red.
The sensor also alerts drivers when they perform a hazardous manoeuvre. For example, an LED flashes red or amber if a driver brakes hard into a bend.
The more green lights a driver obtains, the bigger the rewards, such as possible reductions in car insurance premiums and the opportunity to earn High Street shopping vouchers worth up to £156.
A dedicated advanced driving instructor will coach the driver during the programme, providing follow-up mentoring on how to improve their driving and discuss the errors that may have been made and how to avoid them in the future.
Statistics show that: Nearly 40 per cent of those killed or seriously injured on Cheshire’s roads are aged between 17-25.
One in five drivers will have a crash within 12 months of passing their test.
One in three men will have a collision within the first two years of passing their test.
Sarah Collins, senior road safety officer at Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) said: “By regularly reviewing and assessing driving patterns and behaviours with their families and road safety trainers, young drivers can learn how to develop their driving skills and confidence, and reduce dangerous and inappropriate behaviour.”
CWAC is releasing a limited number of places on the scheme, which will be subsidised by the Cheshire Safer Roads Partnership.
Anyone interested should contact the road safety unit on 01244 976713 or email roadsafety@ cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk for an application form and further information.
Drivers must be between 17 and 21 years old and live in the Cheshire West and Chester area to qualify.
From : Norwich Guardian
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September 29th, 2009 admin
You’re never too young to learn to drive, according to Mercedes-Benz World. Its academy aims to cut accidents involving the most vulnerable road users.
My views on driving are directly opposed to those of my children. They want to get behind the wheel of a car at the first opportunity; I don’t want to attend their funerals.
This isn’t just helicopter parenting. I shove them on to public transport and bully them into going to the park unaccompanied. But driving is different, because the statistics are blood-chilling.
Even Anthony Hamilton, Formula One world champion Lewis’s proud father, admits to terror when his son passed his test. “The first time your child leaves the driveway and turns into the road, that’s when the fear comes in,” he says.
As well it might. One in five new drivers has a crash within six months of passing the test, according to Brake, the road safety charity. A further 70 per cent report near misses. In 2006, 300 newly qualified drivers and their passengers were killed and 10 times as many were seriously injured – not to mention the casualties among those they plough into.
The figures are scary enough to make me grateful for the prohibitive £2,000 it would cost me to insure my extremely sensible 17-year-old daughter to drive my tiny electric car, which has a top speed of 40mph. So what on earth am I doing watching my 10-year-old son, George, driving around a circuit? This is no kart track. He’s in a proper car – a Mercedes-Benz A-class – and going horribly fast…
When I next dare look up, I see that the lunatic adult sitting next to my boy is now encouraging him to put his foot down. Then he’s screeching to a sudden stop. Now he’s whirling around in a terrifying skid. And I’m paying £80 an hour for this Driving Experience, which is open to anyone more than 1.5 metres tall. I must be both completely mad and/or awash with money.
Not so, argues Mika Hatakka, a Finnish psychologist and key player in many EU projects designed to improve (make safer) the training of drivers. “The UK is one of the safest countries in Europe to drive,” he says. “Your death rate is the lowest after Malta, the Netherlands and Sweden. But one of the black spots is still 17-year-old drivers. It’s not a problem just for the UK – everywhere the youngest drivers are the most at risk.”
It seems perverse to imagine that the solution is to start children driving at an even younger age, but those behind the Driving Academy at Mercedes-Benz World, near Weybridge in Surrey, argue that this is the case. In the past two years they have given 15,000 lessons to under-17s, some as young as my son. Max Jukes, 12, has had several lessons and loved it. “No one at school could believe I had driven a real car,” he says.
Max’s mother, Jane, believes the lessons have done wonders for his confidence. “You don’t have to be academic or sporty to learn to drive. I treat his lessons like my daughters’ piano lessons. At least I am spending money on a useful skill,” she says.
Jane maintains she’s not just an indulgent parent. Having experienced the pain of knowing a young person who died in an accident, she’s drawn to the Academy’s claim that early training saves lives. The argument is that young drivers are top of the risk table for two reasons: they lack driving experience and they are immature show-offs. Starting lessons at an earlier age gives them more experience before they take their test; it also takes the edge off their idiocy.
“The Swedes,” Hatakka says, “reduced the age at which people could start driving by a year, giving them 18 months to practise before taking the test at 18. The average number of hours they had spent behind the wheel before passing rose from 50 to 120 – and the accident rate dropped by 40 per cent.”
That’s a lot fewer poignant bunches of wilting flowers at the roadside. If 16-year-olds are going to clock up more hours before being let loose on the roads, they will have to do so off-road, in places such as the old Brooklands circuit where the Driving Academy (which teaches pre- and post-licence skills) is based.
The restriction turns out to be an advantage: the learner doesn’t have to deal with other drivers and, off-road, it’s possible to experience speed, skids and emergency stops that learners on the road can’t try before taking the test. “If you know how to control a vehicle before going on the road,” Hatakka says, “when you go into traffic you are less stressed because there is less pressure on the information processing capacity.”
No doubt it is a good thing to have mastered gearchanging before dealing with the vagaries of other drivers, but it still seems extravagant to start a child on driving lessons years before he or she is within sniffing distance of the test. Not so, according to Andrew Catlin, an instructor at the Driving Academy. He has now stopped teaching skid control to my son, and although the experience doesn’t seem to have thrilled him quite as much as his grinning student, his nerves don’t appear to be shattered.
“The funny thing about teaching younger people,” he says, “is that every time an instructor takes a 13-year-old out for the first time, the verdict is: ‘The child is a genius.’ Driving is like learning a musical instrument – the earlier you start the better. Those who learn before the age of 15 or 16 not only learn fast, they are still open to instruction and are respectful.”
Maybe, but it’s expensive. “They don’t forget what they have learned and will need fewer lessons aged 17,” he points out. “It could even work out cheaper for the parent as insurance companies are considering giving a year’s no-claims bonus to young people who have completed our course because it covers many more skills than are needed to pass the driving test.”
Kart racing, of course, can be less expensive and more widely available. Won’t that suffice as a means of acquiring road sense and getting the urge to speed out of the system? Catlin shakes his head. “Karting is about racing. It’s like playing a live video-game. In fact, it’s the opposite of proper driving instruction where you learn precise control, parking and manoeuvring through obstacles,” he says.
The Driving Academy plans to start similar courses for young drivers at off-road facilities all over the country. But, at present, there are precious few opportunities for the under-17s to get behind the wheel for real, despite a number of driving simulators. The British School of Motoring runs courses in 79 locations, the minimum age being 15. An alternative way to make new drivers safer (and reduce insurance premiums) is to enrol those who have passed the test on a Pass Plus course before letting them loose; the BSM, AA and the Institute of Advanced Motorists all run them.
Other precautions would include insisting on a new driver not carrying passengers during the first few months: the crash rate is five times higher when the new driver has the distraction of two or more passengers, according to research in the United States. Even without drink or drugs – obvious no-nos – the risk of a crash is higher when a driver is tired, so night driving is a bad idea, at least to begin with.
But, take heart. Each hour’s experience and near-miss helps. A month after setting out on the roads, the risk of a new driver being involved in an accident is half what it was on that first day. And it keeps on dropping.
* www.mbdrivingacademy.com; 0870 400 4000.
From : Telegraph website
Bedford-Driving-Schools.co.uk allows driving instructors in Bedford and driving schools in Bedford to list their details for free. People wanting to starting Bedford driving lessons can then find their ‘perfect’ driving instructor or driving school in Bedford.
Many driving schools in Bedford such as Txt-Drive (www.Txt-Drive.co.uk) offer the Pass Plus course to new drivers. It develops existing driving skills and teaches new driving skills e.g. motorway driving, all weather driving, night driving etc. The cost of the Pass Plus course in Bedford will usually be covered by the savings made on the reduced car insurance premium.
Posted in Car Insurance, Driving, Driving Lessons, Driving Schools, Pass Plus, Road Safety | No Comments »
September 25th, 2009 admin
Bedford Rugby Club is giving away a BMW Mini along with one years free insurance to one lucky person!
Bedford Rugby Club along with ‘kind support’ from Elms BMW, Lifesure Group and Bedfordshire On Sunday are raising money for the additional travelling costs for their British & Irish Cup games this season.
The draw to win the BMW Mini will take place on December 26th 2009 at the Bedford vs London Welsh game.
For more details please visit the Bedford Rugby Club website.
Posted in Bedford, Car Insurance, Driving | No Comments »
September 25th, 2009 admin
Providing affordable car insurance for young drivers is an almost impossible task.
Statistics show one in five new drivers has a crash in the first six months, and while one in eight drivers is under 25, they account for one in three fatalities.
The Department for Transport and insurers are looking at ways to cut the risks associated with new drivers, which would allow premiums to fall.
Following the Driving Standards Agency’s Learn to Drive consultation, from the end of this month, the theory driving test will include case studies and proof of understanding.
A new pre-driver training qualification is being rolled out to 14 to 17-year-olds in schools.
The Driving Standards Agency is also talking to the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and individual insurers to look at ways to revamp the Pass Plus scheme. Some elements could be incorporated into a beefed up driving test or new post-driving test course. While insurers do offer discounts, according to ABI figures, young drivers with Pass Plus are only marginally less likely to have an accident than those without.
“Pass Plus is viewed by many young drivers as a way to reduce premiums rather than actually to learn how to be a better driver,” says Andy Goldby, director of motor under-writing at Direct Line.
“We’d like to see life-long learning that allows us to quantify whether the student has actually learned something rather than just turned up on the day.” He, along with the ABI and other insurers, would also like the driving test to be changed to include at least 12 months of driving beforehand, giving experience of all types of driving and weather conditions.
Until changes are introduced, insurers are offering a range of solutions. Aviva, for example, offers an accelerated no-claims discount scheme and Admiral is rolling out a nationwide trial of GreenRoad for 17-year-old males.
Under the scheme, cars are fitted with a free box that tracks how they drive, using a traffic light system.
Drivers who remain in the green – and execute no dangerous manoeuvres during a month – get vouchers worth up to 10 per cent of their undiscounted premium. A 25 per cent discount is given for those on the scheme.
New Marmalade lets young drivers buy a new car and insurance together, using its buying power to get discounts on both. For example, a 17-year-old male living in Colchester, Essex, could buy a new Ford Fiesta 1.25 Style Plus for £11,244 and insurance of £1,620, for £245 a month – though the cost of the insurance would also be spread over five years.
Going it alone, the car could be bought for £12,690 and insurance for £3,086 via Moneysupermarket.com.
So with a 10 per cent deposit and a 12.9 per cent loan, repayments would be £518 a month – although wrapping the first year’s insurance into the loan would bring the cost down to £322 a month.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1212056/Driving-insurance-bills-for.html#ixzz0S9IK7cNK
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