Safe Speed Forums

I've just re-read that and now wish to copyright all of it. Has anyone got Richard Branson's e-mail address

In Victoria the 3rd party component of the car registration is handled by a department within the Government. It is operated like any insurance company with all money going into a large pot and invested to increase the pot. The pot can ONLY be used for 3rd party claims and is totally non-profit.

The idea of different rates for different drivers cannot work in this context as the insurance is on the vehicle. IMO this is the only logical way it can be run and is fair and equitable for all. The insurance covers ANYONE involved in a motor vehicle accident including, of course, pedestrians who may have been the cause of the accident to begin with. And they DON'T pay any insurance at all!

If you are an upstanding member of the community you will have extended 3rd party (other vehicle & property) cover on your vehicle. Anyone with a half decent vehicle will insure it comprehensively.

The only problem with the current 3rd party insurance in Victoria is that it only covers people. If the scheme could be modified to include extended 3rd party then the risk of monetary loss caused by another driver reduces dramatically and we could all breath a sigh of relief.

If you want to insure your own vehicle then by all means base the cost on the driver of the vehicle as the only one to benefit, from the final level of insurance, is the driver of the vehicle.

One last thing about the Victorian system, even if you are involved in a crash with an unregistered vehicle all people involved in the accident are covered by 3rd party insurance. I would assume that VicRoads (the insurers) would then go after the unregistered driver to recover costs but I don't know for sure.

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

One thing that this thread has so far missed is that insurance companies have more power to determine who can legally drive what than the police, the DfT, VOSA, or even Tony Blair. Insurance companies can (and do) load insurance to rediculous levels for the slightest thing and often refuse to insure altogether. Some examples:

• One insurance company cancelled the insurance for a 20-year-old with a Peugeot 406 when he moved from his parent's house to a flat shared with his girlfriend.
  
• All "mainstream" providers refused to insure a van fitted with a second battery professionally installed to the same standards as a "production" motorhome. The battery was fitted to allow auxilliary equipment to be used without risk of compromising the vehicle's ability to restart.

Also, the ABI gives insurance group ratings on line. However, insurance companies don't appear to agree with their own association because the premiums charged are not in line with the ABI-supplied ratings. This makes selecting a car a nightmare for young drivers, where insurance costs can be extortionate. An example is my son. He needed a "new" car. Among the cars we got quotes for from his current insurer (NU Direct) were a group 10 car and a group 11 car. NU Direct wanted an extra £260 TPFT for the group 10 car and an extra £210 for the group 11 one. For a laugh, I asked how much to insure him for my wife's 130 mph group 13 car; they said "£90". It just doesn't make sense.

IMO the insurance industry needs a big shakeup and something to break the stranglehold that the current cartel enjoy. However, I'm not sure that lumping the legal minimum insurance into the VED, would achieve that because we'd only be swapping a cartel for a monopoly.

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Will

If I'm understanding correctly you are talking about medical cover for injured parties?
If so everyone in the UK is covered under national insurance so any UK resident will receive their medical treatment free.

The insurance is to cover 3rd party property and the inevitable compensation claim for stress/trauma, loss of earnings etc. I think an inbuilt penalty for those who cause an accident is a must. It acts as a deterrent and provides a high risk penalty for high risk drivers that safe drivers should not cover. Currently insurance companies "assume" high risk from statistics (young man, fast red car = drunk who drives too fast). I have paid these premiums and never had an at fault accident?

But it COULD BE a none profit monopoly therefore theoreticly the cheapest possible.

I agree with the shake up, I got quotes from £350 to £8000 for the same car???

Along with injuries (including your own specialist and private hospitals) the ambulance is covered and 80% of your wages while incapacitated for more than 2 weeks.

I don't know about the NHS but our "free" health system does not cover your own doctor or private hospitals.

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

It seems that we have incomparable systems. The NHS covers ALL medical requirements from ambulance, GP to surgery although people CAN take out private medical insurance or buy specific treatment. Loss of earning isn't covered to the same extent although we do have statutory sick pay.
So really when we are talking vehicle insurance we are actually talking about different things. Interesting, As a matter of interest what would a middle aged guy pay for an average saloon car in Vic

At least with things as they are, we are pricing some of the high risk drivers onto the bus. If we followed this manifesto recommendation, some of the high risk cases who don't drive at all right now because of high cost will go back on the road, so although this measure may decrease the number of uninsured drivers, it may increase the number of risky drivers! Overall the roads will be less safe but better insured!!

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I stole this .sig

It's possible that a small number of scrupulously honest types have been priced off the road and onto public transport. Problem is, a large number are simply opting to drive illegally with no cover. You said the roads would be better insured but less safe. Since they're on the road anyway, would safety really change all that much? If we're talking about someone driving uninsured due to a string of motoring convictions making a premium beyond his/her reach, then no, it'll be the same. The only difference is that they will at least have a minimal level of cover if they hit someone. If we're talking about an inexperienced youngster who's just passed their L-test only to find that insurance is double the price of the car it removes the temptation to begin their driving career by driving illegally without insurance. Again, if their inexperience causes a crash then at least all involved will be covered by the insurance.

Still, I take your point that someone who's on the bus right now due to an almost complete lack of any driving ability pushing their insurance through the roof (maybe they happened to have one of their rare good days when they took the test) could end up back on the road, and that's probably not desirable. However, I think that's a problem with the L-test as it currently stands being an inadequate filter and allowing too many poor drivers to obtain a licence. I suppose that even if this were fixed they would still be a problem with people driving unlicensed (though still with minimal insurance at least ). I can't think of any easy solution to that one. The only real deterrent would be very heavy punishment (i.e. courts with the cojones to hammer such offenders) and a high likelihood of being caught (i.e. lots of trafplods about to pull suspicious vehicles and check driver documents). Perhaps it would be a good idea to make it compulsory to have your licence with you when you drive as well.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

If it was 100 of the folk you mention against 1 million uninsured drivers it'd probably be worth it.

But the big balancing factor, as I see it, is that we'd have more police available to enforce driving standards. They simply won't have to deal with motor insurance any more. No checks. No paperwork. No "recording details". No court appearances. And so on. They can use this gift of time to enforce driving standards. This suggests to me that there would be a net benefit.

And don't forget, I'm proposing the plan for discussion and investigation, not recommending it blindly.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Not all high risk drivers are bad ones. There are a lot of youngsters who are priced off the road with a sensible car that is fairly new because they can't afford the insurance. This leaves them with the option of buying a cheap car, that is older, less reliable and costly to maintain. or not insuring the car at all.

I was a young driver once, paying huge premiums because I was high risk. As it turns out I never had an accident, this policy employed by insurance companies is openly discriminatory. Male/female, young/middle aged/old, office worker/shop floor worker. I may be inclined to believe their little system if they were to publish the statistics on which they claim it is based. Has anyone seen them?

They are available..but I don't know how to get to them. The one thing that winds me up is the bias towards women drivers. According to the stats women ARE safer than men to start with. The graph for women is almost flat but men get safer as they get older. The crossover point is 38. After that men are statisticaly safer than women..

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Speed camera policy Kills

I spent some considerable time a couple of years ago talking to insurance campanies, trying to get crash data.

They all said the same thing: "We use that data to set our premiums and regard it as commercially confidential". We're just going to have to respect that position, I think. It might be possible to get some of the data if you're an institution conducting research. Other than that, I never expect to see it.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

One question which doesn't seem to have been asked and would be important to know before such a scheme was implemented in the UK....

...How much does this cost you?

The 3rd party component of our registration is about 150 pounds (I don't have the pound symbol sorry) or A$375.00 per year.

In real terms only about A$1.00 or 40p per day, pretty cheap really!

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

Actuaries, who run thier little system, have the longest training period of any of the professions. More than doctors, I am told.

The bloke who ran into us in February was 18. He was done for 'without due care and attention'. That's just a fact that shows little on it's own. I read in the Sunday paper that 20% of people have an accident in the first year after thier test. Hm.. that stacks it up a bit. As for the rates - actuaries and the firms they work for like to keep thier numbers to themselves because risk information is worth a lot of money to an insurance company. Risk information is thier business. One thing you can be sure of is that if a firm can pick up good business, they'll try to, even if they have to cut thier margins. Especially when they know that young people have little money. But they don't cut thier rates, so it looks like they really think that young, male drivers are bad risks.

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I stole this .sig

Absolutely, but that doesn't mean that all young male drivers are bad risks. It could be that just 10% of the group are truly awful risks and have enough accidents between them to make the whole group look bad.

I'm very much of the opinion that a fairly small group of road users are responsible for the majority of crashes. I expressed this a few years ago as a "20/80" hypothesis. In this case 20% of the people cause 80% of the crashes.

There are many things in engineering where a 20/80 rule holds true, and in manufacturing it's common to find that 80% of the cost comes from 20% of the components.

It was the 20/80 hypothesis that caused me to contact insurance companies seeking crash data. I'd thought about trying to investigate the idea based on insurance premiums, but that doesn't work because the risk groups are definitely considerably smaller than the premium groups.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I know - companies can't identify which 10% are truly awful risks, so all young male drivers get it in the neck. But there is also a residual risk attached to all young drivers due to lack of experience. I was a passenger when I got smashed into, and both drivers were under 25. I believe that if I had been driving, I would have had time to do 'something', because experience of the world makes you much more suspicious. I sort of "expect" cars to come around bends on the wrong side of the road. I know I'm being predictable, but I think the 'pay by the mile' insurance scheme is the right thing for young drivers. That way, they can build up experience when they can afford to without 'flooding' the roads with risk. As they build up their incident-free miles, I expect companies would be more amenable to cutting their rates.

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I stole this .sig

And if the 20/80 rule does apply, it scotches the argument "we can't trust drivers with road safety because 80% believe they are 'better than average'" because, measured by accident involvement, the vast majority of that 80% ARE 'better than average'.

If driver population = 100,000
Crash involvements = 1,000
Average crash/driver = 1%
20/80 rule means 20,000 drivers account for 800 crashes
Therefore remaining 80,000 drivers account for 200 crashes
If all the remaining 200 crashes are accounted for by 200 drivers of the 80,000:
79,800 have no crash involvement = 80% "better than average"