Talk about strange pricing: in England, insuring a £600 Corsa may be quoted at £72 000 per year.
That is weird. They blame ambulance chasers, a computer glitch and the fact that so many people are driving uninsured. You can see this is the country of Sherlock Holmes.
In my opinion, those who do buy insurance should not be forced to pay for the costs of those who do not. Driving without insurance is against the law, so if anyone has to pay, it's the person himself, and if he/she cannot, then it's the state. Not those who do carry their own liabilities.
Näytetään tekstit, joissa on tunniste cars. Näytä kaikki tekstit
Näytetään tekstit, joissa on tunniste cars. Näytä kaikki tekstit
1.6.2011
18.4.2011
Car insurances are up, who's ripping us off?
Answer: no one is ripping us off, except perhaps the state (in taxes).
The Telegraph complains that car insurance prices are up and this is due to frivolous legal costs. The no-win no-fee lawyers in some countries, like Britain, may have some impact. But the problem of raising insurance costs is visible also in countries that do not have no-win no-fee lawyers. There's another thing that people often don't appreciate nearly enough. It's the change in cars and their safety that we've seen over the last decades.
Modern cars are designed so that they contain the impact energy in accidents: the front of the car compresses in a controlled way, but the passenger cabin maintains form and protects people. The cars also have airbags - up to a dozen of them. And there are explosive cartridges that tighten the safety belt in an accidents. There are also many other features that help people survive crashes but which increase the manufacturing and repairing costs of cars. This is the main reason for having fewer people die in traffic accidents - the number of accidents is not going down so much, but the cars help people to survive more and more dramatic crashes.
This does have a cost. In the old times, your Mini or Opel Kadett C or Toyota Corolla could kill you if had a medium crash. Nowadays your Hyunday Getz, Opel Astra or Toyota Auris deforms itself, but you just walk away. But if you have a small crash - and there are many more of those than there are medium or big, fatal crashes - the car is totalled. Large parts of the fuselage need to be replaced, as well as the airbags, the parts of interior destroyed by the exploding airbag cartridge, etc. Often the car looks more or less intact on the outside, but it's written off, because it is so deformed that the doors won't close any more. It's not feasible to fix it any more.
If you have a small crash, but just big enough to launch the airbags, the car has to be recycled and replaced. This has a big cost for the insurance companies.
Look at the bright side: the injuries people get are diminishing. The cost to the health system is smaller. But car insurers pay this in cars that are written off, and that increases the insurance prices.
The Telegraph complains that car insurance prices are up and this is due to frivolous legal costs. The no-win no-fee lawyers in some countries, like Britain, may have some impact. But the problem of raising insurance costs is visible also in countries that do not have no-win no-fee lawyers. There's another thing that people often don't appreciate nearly enough. It's the change in cars and their safety that we've seen over the last decades.
Modern cars are designed so that they contain the impact energy in accidents: the front of the car compresses in a controlled way, but the passenger cabin maintains form and protects people. The cars also have airbags - up to a dozen of them. And there are explosive cartridges that tighten the safety belt in an accidents. There are also many other features that help people survive crashes but which increase the manufacturing and repairing costs of cars. This is the main reason for having fewer people die in traffic accidents - the number of accidents is not going down so much, but the cars help people to survive more and more dramatic crashes.
This does have a cost. In the old times, your Mini or Opel Kadett C or Toyota Corolla could kill you if had a medium crash. Nowadays your Hyunday Getz, Opel Astra or Toyota Auris deforms itself, but you just walk away. But if you have a small crash - and there are many more of those than there are medium or big, fatal crashes - the car is totalled. Large parts of the fuselage need to be replaced, as well as the airbags, the parts of interior destroyed by the exploding airbag cartridge, etc. Often the car looks more or less intact on the outside, but it's written off, because it is so deformed that the doors won't close any more. It's not feasible to fix it any more.
If you have a small crash, but just big enough to launch the airbags, the car has to be recycled and replaced. This has a big cost for the insurance companies.
Look at the bright side: the injuries people get are diminishing. The cost to the health system is smaller. But car insurers pay this in cars that are written off, and that increases the insurance prices.
17.6.2010
DUI and traffic control
It's so difficult to write a parody about the Finnish traffic policy, because sometimes it's a joke in itself. Not always, some things are not so bad, but this one...
We're told by HS that people who drive under influence often have a problem with alcohol and they may be not entirely functional as members of modern society.
Big, big surprise. Who would ever have thought of that? That people who are sober would not drive under influence? And people who do DUI are people who regularly drink themselves out of their senses? At least this does not seem to appear too obvious to those numerous officials at the Ministry of Traffic and Communications, who prepare tightened legislation for traffic.
Yes, we do have occasions of utmost recklessness and stupidity in traffic. Far too many of them, although much much fewer than in most countries of the world, the nearest worse example being Russia.
The most extreme cases combine many, if not all, aspects of risk behaviour, something along these lines: a 17-year-old boy drives (a stolen car) with a 0.25 % blood alcohol content (legal limit being 0.05 %), at the speed of 165 km/h (in a 50 km/h zone), against a red light, past a car that had stopped at the lights, and hits a pedestrian who was crossing the street. Or just hits a tree and kills everyone in the car. This is the fifth time the driver was caught DUI with a stolen car, and he has a row of so-called "conditional jail sentences" in his history. (Usually it's a he, not a she, although we're developing in equality.)
So, what does the investigation board set up by the ministry propose as actions from lessons learned? Usually, the list is:
What I would propose instead? I'd say that we should lock up people who repeatedly drive recklessly under influence, and enforce an anti-drug and anti-alcohol programme to them. First keep them in jail and give treatment, then slowly release with mandatory antabus capsules. Things like that.
This would help traffic safety, but it wouldn't collect money to the state and to the friends of ministry employees (like driving schools), so it is not going to happen.
We're told by HS that people who drive under influence often have a problem with alcohol and they may be not entirely functional as members of modern society.
Big, big surprise. Who would ever have thought of that? That people who are sober would not drive under influence? And people who do DUI are people who regularly drink themselves out of their senses? At least this does not seem to appear too obvious to those numerous officials at the Ministry of Traffic and Communications, who prepare tightened legislation for traffic.
Yes, we do have occasions of utmost recklessness and stupidity in traffic. Far too many of them, although much much fewer than in most countries of the world, the nearest worse example being Russia.
The most extreme cases combine many, if not all, aspects of risk behaviour, something along these lines: a 17-year-old boy drives (a stolen car) with a 0.25 % blood alcohol content (legal limit being 0.05 %), at the speed of 165 km/h (in a 50 km/h zone), against a red light, past a car that had stopped at the lights, and hits a pedestrian who was crossing the street. Or just hits a tree and kills everyone in the car. This is the fifth time the driver was caught DUI with a stolen car, and he has a row of so-called "conditional jail sentences" in his history. (Usually it's a he, not a she, although we're developing in equality.)
So, what does the investigation board set up by the ministry propose as actions from lessons learned? Usually, the list is:
- Reduce the legal limit of BAC from 0.05 % to 0.02 % (but what difference does this make as the guy was already ten times above this limit? The only outcome is that DUI will cease to be a shameful offence, because 0.02 % BAC does not impact driving capability negatively, so the DUI fines will be just yet another random tax.)
- Reduce the speed limit on this road from 50 km/h to 40 km/h (though the criminal in question did not care about the existing speed limit in the first place, so why should this change anything?)
- Make an alcohol-sensitive lock mandatory in new cars (although the guy was driving and old, stolen car whose any kind of locks were already circumvented, so how would this help?)
- Raise the age of getting a driving license from 18 to 21 and tighten up the requirements (altough the guy was already now too young to have a license, and wouldn't ever have got it under current rules because of repeated offences)
- Increase the number of mandatory driving lessons in driving school (though the guy never went to driving school - but other clients will pay more to owners of the schools, who happen to be pals of the guys at the Ministry)
- Arrange traps for ordinary drivers. (Park an unmarked police car 4,80 meters in front of a zebra crossing. Fines to anyone who doesn't stop as the distance is less than 5 meters.)
- Enforce an obligatory, GPS-based tracking of all vehicles (except vehicles used by professional criminals, who'll be able to avoid this without any real punishment, because you can collect fines only from middle-class people, and professional criminals don't belong to prison, they need help and support.)
What I would propose instead? I'd say that we should lock up people who repeatedly drive recklessly under influence, and enforce an anti-drug and anti-alcohol programme to them. First keep them in jail and give treatment, then slowly release with mandatory antabus capsules. Things like that.
This would help traffic safety, but it wouldn't collect money to the state and to the friends of ministry employees (like driving schools), so it is not going to happen.
28.12.2009
A sensible official
Today's Pravda contains, encouragingly, a comment about the so-called congestion fees. (Pravda lives at http://hs.fi but this item appears only in the print version, at the bottom of page A12.)
Paavo Tukkimäki writes about Olavi H. Koskimäki of the Finnish Road Administration. Mr. Koskimäki spells out what is obvious to anyone who cares to see: the plan for congestion fees based on GPS tracking of each individual vehicle is a fool's errand. The proposed system is great if you want to have a mega-Stasi-Big-Brother society, and accept official access to personal data with the mindset "we trust the State".
But if you want to raise money for the state from a fee based on driving in congested traffic, all you need to do is collect fuel tax. The more congestion there is, the higher per km is fuel consumption. Moreover, the link between fuel consumption and the oh-so-modern-evil carbon emissions is 1:1. No need for complex tracking of who is driving what kind of vehicle in what kind of circumstances.
This would be very simple and straightforward. But: for the citizen control industry conglomerate of politicians, officials and information system vendors, such a scheme would be too simple. They want to set up a system where every car is equipped with a mandatory GPS device, and then you can collect fees based on the rating of the vehicle, time of day and various other variables that could be monitored, adjusted, regulated, legislated, et cetera ad infinitum.
And the poor end user someone who just drives a car - here not even a consumer but simply a subject of the administration, "subject" as in a subject of an autocracy - would just foot the bill.
Not if I can help it. The bright, shining, self-righteous hype about the necessity for "congestion" fees, so strongly advocated by our dominant newspaper, has got a dent in it. Thank you for this, Mr. Tukkimäki and Mr. Koskinen. I'm sure Jan Vapaavuori hates your guts, and that alone is worth a commendation.
Paavo Tukkimäki writes about Olavi H. Koskimäki of the Finnish Road Administration. Mr. Koskimäki spells out what is obvious to anyone who cares to see: the plan for congestion fees based on GPS tracking of each individual vehicle is a fool's errand. The proposed system is great if you want to have a mega-Stasi-Big-Brother society, and accept official access to personal data with the mindset "we trust the State".
But if you want to raise money for the state from a fee based on driving in congested traffic, all you need to do is collect fuel tax. The more congestion there is, the higher per km is fuel consumption. Moreover, the link between fuel consumption and the oh-so-modern-evil carbon emissions is 1:1. No need for complex tracking of who is driving what kind of vehicle in what kind of circumstances.
This would be very simple and straightforward. But: for the citizen control industry conglomerate of politicians, officials and information system vendors, such a scheme would be too simple. They want to set up a system where every car is equipped with a mandatory GPS device, and then you can collect fees based on the rating of the vehicle, time of day and various other variables that could be monitored, adjusted, regulated, legislated, et cetera ad infinitum.
And the poor end user someone who just drives a car - here not even a consumer but simply a subject of the administration, "subject" as in a subject of an autocracy - would just foot the bill.
Not if I can help it. The bright, shining, self-righteous hype about the necessity for "congestion" fees, so strongly advocated by our dominant newspaper, has got a dent in it. Thank you for this, Mr. Tukkimäki and Mr. Koskinen. I'm sure Jan Vapaavuori hates your guts, and that alone is worth a commendation.
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