> anyhow - he gets raped by the government for obeying the law.
> correct tax, insurance, mot.
This seems to be a good example of the misunderstanding of almost all posts in this thread:
Insurance prices are set empirically by insurance companies, working out how much the insured is likely to cost them. There is so much competition in this country (lots of insurers) that we are getting very competitive prices. The insurance companies aren't doing it to rip you off.
The prices for 17 year olds are higher than for older people, quite simply because data over many years has shown that 17 year olds are far more likely to cost the insurance company money. They're not preaching, they're not trying to price them out of the market, they're just looking at history.
The cost of insurance has nothing to do with the government, so I'm afraid you can't blame Mr Blair for this one. (OK, we pay Insurance Premium Tax, but that's not the point under discussion.)
The above is fact. What follows is my opinion.
The reason insurance is getting so expensive is down, I suspect, to everyone who possibly can trying to get as much money as they can out of insurance companies. Ambulance-chasing lawyers, garages doing car repairs (who charge stupid amounts for insurance work at best, and are quite literally criminal at worst - I have experience!), windscreen companies charging double the (already high!) main-dealer rate for fitting a windscreen ("just give us your insurance details and we'll do the rest") and so on. The payouts are so high. Where does this money come from? From our premiums. Nowhere else.
-Mark
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That's very true - I would guess that 25% of my friends had written off their cars within six months of passing the test.
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The problem being that they only price the more honest people out of the car-owning market while there are plenty who are willing to flout the law, posing more of a threat.
It would be difficult to implement in a 'fair' way, but why not offer new drivers a fairly substantial introductory discount which they would lose if they have a *fault* accident. It would be an incentive to be more careful and those who are good drivers could afford insurance while those who cause accidents have to pay for it. Restricting discount loss to fault accidents only means you don't lose out from things you aren't to blame for, although I'd envisage having some form of NCD on top of this discount / loading.
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Young drivers need to learn that owning a vehicle is an expensive hobby and not a right of passage. I passed my test when I was 17, then went to Uni until 21, had a job for 4 years and then bought a car as before this time I couldn't afford it.
If you don't have a car you adapt your lifestyle to fit around the situation. I walked to Uni (the number of cars around Halls of Residence and on Campus near where I live is astonishing). When I got my first job I lived 12 miles from work but managed a 90 minute commute on a bus and train for a couple of years then eventually bought my first house which was within 150m of a railway station.
My dad is a driving instructor and says most of the puplis he teaches have no need for a car, but because they pass their test they feel it's a God given for them to have a car which costs nothing to run!
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I have to agree, my friend has his test on Monday and during our lunch break between uni lectures he was asking about owning a car. He was amazed when I told him how much you have to pay for road tax, fuel, servicing, MOT etc... When I said my insurance was £900 (for a 20 year old male TPFT) his face went white and then uttered the words "It will go on my loan" But he doesn't really need a car as he only lives 2 miles from the Uni and a regular bus service. Meanwhile me on the other hand lives 9 miles away, the buses are regularly late and the trains are either late or cancelled (Thank you Virgin West Coast)
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My 22 year old son has a 1993 1.1 Fiesta. Comp insurance with 1 years NCB £860.
Of his friend swho passed tests at 18 that I know of, within 12 months of passing:
1 crashed and wrote off Escort
1 crashed twice: 2 write offs
1 done for drunk driving
Would scare me to death insuring them..
madf
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>Would scare me to death insuring them..
Or driving in their vicinity..!
No one writes off a car on their first mistake - you get warning shots first... wonder how many times he nearly wrote it off before he actually did.
Same for drunk driving - bet he didn't get caught first time. Thank goodness he did eventually.
Anyway I did have a point to make: for every 17 year old who writes off a car (my brother's friend wrote of two Fiestas, one new, one nearly new, within a year) it takes dozens of very high premiums to make up for it. So they only have their peers to blame.
If it could become less fashionable to drive stupidly it would help, but I have no idea how to achieve that.
Of course not all groups drive stupidly. My brother's friend didn't, for example - he was just terrible at it. The DSA test leaves a lot to be desired.
My DSA test only lasted 20 minutes! The examiner was 5 minutes late, and the last five minutes were highway code questions. Looking back on it, I was not a good driver when I passed my test - but you don't have any point of reference. I actually enjoy working to improve my drive (no accounting for taste), but I know that's not everyone's cup of tea.
The test in Germany lasts 90 minutes (IIRC) and is a lot more strict. Fail it and you must take another 20 hours of lessons (from an approved driving school). Driving over there (especially amongst youngsters) seems much better in my experience.
-Mark
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Straying off the insurance issue slightly, when I turned 17, my Dad would take me out in his car and I had a proper instructor. My Dad made it very clear that he would teach me how to drive but the instructor, how to pass the test. My dad is a cop so all this business of double declutching, reading the lines of the road, fast exit points on bends etc was drummed into my quite early with the instructor on the more real issues of not exceeding the speed limit, always change down to 3rd before stopping etc...
The test was 20 minutes long - never got to show off with my double declutching (decided to play it safe), never went higher than a 40 limit and of course, never went on a motorway - a major flaw of the test.
If I had my time again, I would play it exactly the same. I'm no good driver by any means but I would be a hell of a lot worse had I not been taught by Dad.
Incidently, the day after my test, Dad and I went on the M6 all the way down to Birmingham to get me used to it - should have been covered on the test though shouldn't it?
--
Adam
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I'm 20. I've had 4 cars now. Only one of those has been damaged, in an accident that was my fault. I learned from that mistake. I no longer push the limits of the car on roads I don't know. Lesson learned. My best friend likewise wrote off his previous car on a road he knew well on some black ice. Was that his fault (he was travelling under the speed limit, by nearly 20mph) or could it have happened to anyone?
The thing is both of us drive nearly 20000 miles a year and have each one accident to our name, I've done about 85k since I passed, and did 5k before I passed as I learned with my father. We are both confident to drive in town or on the motorways in any conditions, and both pay about the same in insurance bills (around the £1000 mark).
By contrast I have another friend who drives, she has never written a car off, she pays about £900 in insurance on a car smaller than both of ours (Saxo vs A3 and Escort) and she hates driving, avoids it whenever she can, and is not confident either in town or on the open road. Her car has a few dumps and scrapes from parking accidents here and there, and you have to wait a *long* time to get out of a junction behind her.
Which of those three drivers do you think is the poorer driver in reality? I don't drink within 12 hours of driving EVER, she will allow herself a glass of wine or similar. I think insurance is over priced in some respects but I accept why that is, you only have to look around at the kids in the souped up Nova to see why. Why bother bitching about it? It's part of the cost you accept as being a motorist.
Oh and the people saying "grrr when I was 21 I didn't have a car I walked 4 miles uphill to work and back again in the snow" well I'm sorry you didn't have a car, or couldn't justify one. But don't complain at me and tell me that I shouldn't have a car because of my age. I pay for my own insurance, tax, servicing, fuel and I pay installments on the purchase for my car. I'm at uni and I work damn hard to make sure I'll have a good job after and I use my skills now to earn money in the meantime to pay for my car.
/rant over
Chris
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in an accident that was my fault. My best friend likewise wrote off his previous car she has never written a car off, she pays about £900
Which of those three drivers do you think is the poorer driver in reality?
I don't know which is the better driver, but it appears the insurance company have a pretty good idea of who is the lower risk.
As for owning your own car at 21, well obviously I used live in a cardboard box and lick the road with my tongue, but other than that, good luck to you.
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Insurance always has been high for young drivers, I know mine was so my first car was covered third party only. It might be a bit more now in comparison but its not a huge difference. The real difference is the fall in the value of second hand cars which means that most young drivers will pay more for insurance than they do for a car, with some reasonable cars going for peanuts. Young drivers more reckless and are a genuine higher risk.
I ran a bike first before I had a car and when I look back I think I am very lucky not to have had a serious accident. When I see incidents of bad driving these days it's often young lads with baseball caps showing off. Untill they grow out of it they will drive like prats in the mistaken belief that they are being cool. I don't know what the answer is unless you restrict driving of young males under the age of about 23.
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I don't know what the answer is unless you restrict driving of young males under the age of about 23.
Will that work though? Or will ir result in exactly the same learning curve / growth of maturity, but starting at 23 instead of 17?
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I did Pass-Plus and I think it was a good idea. Not the end to all our problems, but better than nothing. Certainly a good idea for a young person's first motorway drive to be supervised by an instructor. Much better than having four mates in the car egging them on as they do 90mph up to the services with the McDonalds during the school lunch hour. Ok it costs, but IIRC it was less than £100 and Churchill treat it as one year's NCD - it immediately payed for itself.
I think a lot of young driver's accidents are caused by them thinking "right, let's see what it can do" one evening when they're driving alone. They try to get it sideways in a sweeping corner, mistakenly thinking they'll be able to hold it like they do in computer games. When you first have the back end fishtail on you, the biggest surprise is how heavy the car feels and how much momentum it has - even in a small car. This theory was one put forward by my driving instructor. After I passed my test he suggested that I find a disused airfield and spend half an hour scaring myself with slides and spins. Gives you an idea of how cars behave when pushed beyond their limits - certainly made me think twice about trying any rallying manouvers on public roads.
Perhaps a compulsory half hour's experience of spins and slides in a safe environment might persuade young drivers that this sort of showboating isn't a good idea on the roads?
About the complaints concerning premiums, why not try cars with more of an 'old duffer' image? Yes, the 1.0 Corsa may be group 1 but I'm sure the insurers know that they are regularly fitted with a fat exhaust, K&N filter, bodykit and neon lighting - before being driven like a pratt by someone wearing faux Burberry.
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Certainly a good idea for a young person's first motorway drive to be supervised by an instructor. Much better than having four mates in the car egging them on as they do 90mph up to the services with the McDonalds during the school lunch hour.
Well said.
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I think one of the issues here is the fact that:
the uninsured driver takes car for a spin. Causes an accident. Damage at lets say £3000 to other car. Gets taken to court and fined £300 for non-insurance and 6 points. That still leaves a £2,700 shortfall that the insurance company have to pick up.
Incidentally, I pay £1,000 pa to insure a Golf GT130, with a learner driver (27) and business class 2, with 36,000mpa. This is up from £750 on an Astra Coupe only last year!
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"That still leaves a £2,700 shortfall that the insurance company have to pick up."
No, it still leaves the insurance co. with a £3,000 bill.
The fine goes to the Court.
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Okay - but you get the drift of what I was wittering on about first thing Monday....
These little pink fluffy handcuffs get away with not paying for something, whilst everyone elses insurance goes up by £30-£50 per year to pay for them. Typical in todays culture of have it today, pay tomorrow..... Or never pay at all...
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The only way to afford insurance when i first passed my test was to use my dads with me as a named driver. when i first passed i was quoted $1800 cheapest for a 15 year old 1.3 golf fully comp, the only way to bring down insurance is to be accident and points free for as long as possible, am now on a 16v 1.8 p reg xanti for little over £1000 in my own name after just short of three years of passing my test.
There are people who find ways round it puttin themselves on as an occasional driver onto a car that only they use but at the end of the day eventually they will get their comeupence.
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