Dazed & Confused?

To flash or not to flash

Following the prosecution of a Grimsby driver who flashed other motorists to warn them of a speed gun, Confused.com’s Owe Carter questions the motives of such a law.

 

Earlier this month, Michael Thompson was charged and convicted after flashing his headlights at approaching motorists to warn them of a speed gun ahead. He was fined £175 and ordered to pay £250 costs at Grimsby Magistrates’ Court.

Thompson defended his actions as his “civic duty”, explaining that he “flashed motorists to warn them of a hazard.” He was nonetheless found guilty of wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of her duties.

It strikes me that there are two ways of looking at this. One is that, if motorists are breaking the law by speeding, then vehicles coming the other way shouldn’t prevent them from coming to justice by warning them that they’re about to get caught.

Thompson, however, claimed that he warned oncoming drivers as he thought that they would brake hard when they saw the speed gun, which can be potentially dangerous. If he had the safety of other motorists at heart, can we really take such a dim view of his actions?

This also highlights a wider issue. By warning other drivers, Thompson was effectively trying to get them to obey the law. In addition to punishing those who break the law, isn’t prevention of crime also on the police’s agenda?

And what happens if you remove the speed gun from the picture? If I flash motorists because they are unaware of an obstruction (such as congestion) up ahead, or because I simply think they’re driving too fast, am I breaking the law? Presumably not. Would it be too cynical to suggest that the reason for prosecuting Thompson might have been that he was preventing the generation of revenue?

What do you think? Do you feel that the law is missing the mark in this area? Or that Michael Thompson was deserving of his conviction? Feel free to let me know by commenting below.

Somebody to love

If you've not already seen it on TV, or even if you have and just want to see it again, you can use the link above to check out Confused.com's new advert. It features our mascot Cara singing Queen's infectious classic Somebody To Love.

Plus, Cara has her own Twitter page now @CaraConfused, and you can also find out what she's up to on her Facebook page.

So what do you think of the ad? Has it got your toes tapping? Feel free to let me know by commenting below.

And if anybody does find me somebody to love, feel free to email me at the usual address :o)

Eye spy: drivers urged to get regular eye checks

Confused.com’s Owe Carter echoes the importance of regular eye tests for over 55s, in light of a recent study and its implications for road safety.

The AA have recently been urging motorists who are over 55 to get regular eye checks, and not to withhold information concerning any deterioration in their sight from their optician.

A study by Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK and backed by The AA found that almost half of motorists over 55 won’t bring up the issue of failing eyesight when going for a check-up. The study found that signs of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) – which is likely to be the leading cause of blindness in the UK – were at risk of being ignored, as people shrug them off as “just a part of growing older”.

According to their figures, just over half of the over-55-year olds questioned drove every day, and yet 45 per cent admitted to not discussing eyesight problems in relation to their driving with their optician. Plus 62 per cent didn’t really know much about AMD.

According to The AA's Head of Road Safety, Andrew Howard: "This study reveals an alarming risk to the safety of people on the roads. It is vital that drivers over 55 years understand the symptoms of AMD, go for regular eye checks and discuss driving with their opticians."

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), who also backed the study, has lots of useful information about AMD on its website, including causes, symptoms and treatments.

And obviously, it’s not just the over 55s who should ensure they’re getting regular check-ups. A study conducted last year found that a significant number of those between 35 and 55 also put off going to the optician. The implications for road safety are obvious, but it strikes me as daft that people wouldn’t take their eyesight seriously – motorists or not.

Forty-three per cent of the respondents of that particular study said they were put off potentially getting glasses because it would make them “feel older” – which is as striking a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face as you’re likely to get.

Nighty night for newly-qualified drivers?

Confused.com's Owe Carter wonders if banning young and newly-qualified drivers from driving at night would really be the right way forward.

So researchers from Cardiff University believe that newly-qualified young drivers should be banned from driving at night, and also prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age. The rationale is to reduce accidents, and it is claimed that some 200 lives a year would be saved.

This isn’t unprecedented, as similar schemes exist in the antipodes, and over in some parts of the States.

These proposals have been met with a mixed reception, including within the car insurance industry. Swiftcover, for example, have welcomed the proposals. They point to research from road-safety charity Brake, which says that “young men under the age of 21 are ten times more likely to die on the road than other motorists and account for a third of dangerous driving convictions”. As such, Swiftcover conclude that reducing the amount of time youngsters spend on the road will also decrease the number of accidents and the cost of premiums accordingly. If only life were so simple!

insurethebox, on the other hand, say “recent proposals to ban newly qualified young drivers from night-time motoring and carrying passengers of a similar age misses the point… The focus, in our view, should be on education rather than penalties.”

Let’s be honest – we all know who’s being targeted here: chiefly young male drivers who hoon about with no sense of their own mortality - or their mates’ mortality for that matter. We probably all know someone who has had an accident due to this type of recklessness, and many of us will know of someone who’s died in this way. But is a UK-wide ban on night-time driving the correct response?

Not all young drivers are irresponsible. I question the sense in restricting the freedom of many young adults, some of them requiring their cars for their jobs and livelihood.

Confused.com’s motor team believes insurance providers may be able to step in and help alleviate the problem by offering young drivers discounted premiums if they are willing to not drive at night. Such an approach would offer incentive, rather than censure. Recent advances in GPS tracking have allowed insurance providers to fit devices to vehicles and analyse how the car is being driven, when it is being driven, where it is being driven and for how long – an approach championed by insurethebox, for one. Potentially this allows providers to gain valuable insight that wouldn’t have been available on a car insurance application form, and would allow them to price insurance for young people more fairly, based on their individual risk.

Speaking of valuable insight, what of the issue of young drivers gaining experience themselves? Knowing how to deal with adverse conditions comes with practice – practice that banning night-time driving would effectively deny. There is an undeniable circularity in claiming that inexperience of dealing with unfavourable conditions should be countered with... er... limiting further experience. If we’re going down this route, perhaps we should ban young people from driving in fog.

The research claims that around 200 deaths and 1,700 injuries would be avoided on an annual basis. But I don’t think it’s as straightforward as that. If more drivers on our roads are effectively undertrained, then it’s not possible to guarantee that injuries and deaths won’t be caused elsewhere.

Reckless drivers who are inclined to speed, get tanked up and drive or show off to their mates (or all three) will do so regardless of preventative measures. There are already harsh penalties for dangerous driving, with young drivers being allowed only six points before they are banned, and minor infractions impacting heavily on their already sky-high premiums. It seems extreme to punish the majority for the actions of a relative few – particularly as there are alternatives available in terms of education and technology.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts by commenting below.

Putting your foot down

Confused.com’s Owe Carter would like your opinion: is the speed limit on the motorway set at the right level?

Over half of all motorists exceed the speed limit on motorways, and 16 per cent exceed 80mph.

Those are the statistics reported in the Department for Transport’s Road Statistics 2009: Traffic, Speeds and Congestion, which was published last month.

These statistics may not surprise you. After all, the speed limit for UK motorways was set in 1965, and cars have become considerably more powerful since then. Nowadays, it’s all too easy to be cruising at a speed in excess of the speed limit without realising it. Well, actually that’s not true for my car, which starts shaking when I hit 70mph (this isn’t a ‘feature’, by the way – just a coincidence). But the point remains.

So, over half of motorists break the law. This can get the motorist a fine, points on their licence, and send car insurance prices soaring. And yet they still do it.

Does that mean that half of all drivers are irresponsible, and that if they get a speeding ticket, they get what we deserve? Or do you think that the speed limit should move with the times and be raised, so that fewer motorists are penalised for things that they’re going to do anyway? Perhaps you think there should be no speed limit on the motorway, just like on the Autobahn (or, as I’ve just learned, on the Isle of Man)? Whatever your views, I’d love to hear from you.

Also, please bear in mind that I’m only talking about the national speed limit here – not the limit for built-up areas and so on.

Confused.com's driving test tales

Owe Carter relays driving test horror stories from some of Confused.com's staff.

Sitting your driving test is nerve racking, there’s no doubt about that. If you’ve yet to take your test, we hope it goes smoothly for you. But things don’t always go according to plan, as members of Confused.com can testify...

Our first hapless case study is Michelle, who says: “During my first and most terrifying driving test, at one point I removed both hands from the steering wheel in a blind panic and covered my face! It’s worth noting that at the time I was approaching a set of traffic lights travelling at around 30mph! The examiner had to slam the brakes on at his side and I think he may have had an accident of his own. Unfortunately I failed my test on this occasion!” No kidding.

Steve told us: “As I pulled out of the test station in Wellington, Telford I remember seeing – and driving past – an elderly lady wearing a tan-coloured raincoat who was walking towards me along the path on my side of the road.

“The next thing I remember is seeing her in my rear-view mirror soaked to the skin, as I’d splashed her from the waist down with a puddle at the side of the road.

“Apparently I could have failed according to the examiner, for not giving adequate consideration to other road users... But as it was right at the start of the test he let me off!”

Matt has a cautionary tale: “My mate turned up for his driving test feeling confident after just having a lesson that went well.  After forking out for the test he realised he had forgotten his passport... Consequently he was classed as an official failure without even getting behind the wheel.”

 
A test failure, yesterday

Some schadenfreude from Alex: “For my driving test, somebody drove out of the test centre with their hazard warning lights on, which is an instant fail. This made me laugh.”

Martin told us of his mum’s woes: “She wasn’t particularly good and failed twice... But convinced my dad that she’d been unlucky and applied again. Third time lucky, after all.

“On her test day – the 16th of October 1987 – we all woke up to The Great Storm... So the test centre was closed, along with half the roads in the UK. Perhaps it was a sign that she just wasn’t meant to drive…”

But it's not all doom and gloom...

However, not all of these stories are tragic. According to Rachel, “I grabbed the driving examiner’s leg when I went for the gear stick. I don’t think he minded though.”

Heledd also advocates charming your examiner: “Well, I think the instructor must have fancied me a bit, because I stalled as soon as I left the test centre; hit a kerb when doing a three-point turn; went over the 30mph speed limit (twice)... And despite all that I passed my test!”

And this writer? Well, I almost hit a lollipop operative on my second test. Apparently this only counts as a minor fault, so I still passed.

And we’ve saved the most bizarre story until last. Take it away, Tony:
“As is standard practice, I had a driving lesson prior to taking my test. Cutting a long story very short, a man walked straight out in to the road from between two parked cars. Neither I nor the instructor (with the dual controls) had time to react and I hit him at around 25-30 miles an hour. He went straight up over the windscreen and I recall watching him tumble down the back window and into the road.

“It was like a scene from a very bad sitcom, as the man I struck was your archetypal vagrant – scruffy clothes, staggering and clutching a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. He got up, walked into the opposite lane and was struck by the wing of another car coming the other way and bundled onto the pavement. I recall vividly two older ladies shouting at the man. One woman even waved her umbrella to emphasise her displeasure. The scruffy man got up again – bizarrely still clutching the unbroken bottle in a bag – and staggered off down a side street.

“Anyhow, after taking a moment to gather my thoughts the instructor and I moved to front of the car to check for damage. There was neither a dent nor a scratch on the car... All that remained was a ghostly damp palm print in the centre of the bonnet where I’d struck and launched the drunk up and over the roof.
“In my mind I reckoned that things couldn’t get worse on my driving test and it probably served to relax me. It was my second attempt, and I passed – although my heart was in my mouth when the examiner took me back down the exact same road an hour later during my test.”

Have you any heartbreaking tales of woe or life-affirming tales of triumph associated with your driving test? If so, we’d all love to hear them – so feel free to comment below.

Has the UK got car insurance right?

Confused.com's Owe Carter promises this entry isn't as boring as the title suggests, and urges you to read on!

So I’ve returned from a six-week jaunt in New Zealand, and back in the altogether more chilly (at the moment anyway) UK.

Now, I’d love to talk to you lovely readers about the beautiful beaches, friendly folk I met, the surf or boysenberry wine – but sadly this isn’t really the right forum for it. So instead I’m going to talk to you about car insurance. Whoop whoop!

New Zealand is one of the very few countries in the world where it’s not compulsory to have motor insurance to drive legally. So it was possible to simply borrow a friend’s car and head down to the beach without so much as having to make a phone call or create any paperwork. Which was a welcome contrast from the hassle and expense that a friend of mine went through getting herself insured on my car at home in my absence.

Now, we’re a prudent lot at Confused.com, so it simply wouldn’t do if I recommended anything other than getting at least third party cover if you’re thinking of touring around New Zealand. If I’d have been going any further than a few miles down sparsely-populated roads, I’d have probably considered getting short-term cover with BBH. This is well worth knowing if you’re heading to NZ at any point – or know someone who is – for less than a year and want to get around by car. Otherwise you may have to commit to a policy for a whole year. And no-one likes paying for stuff they don’t use! Unless, of course, you’re mega rich and don’t care if you hemorrhage cash. In which case, what are you doing here?

Back to the plot (such as it is). So it’s smart to get insurance whilst out there, because the last thing you want is to be left massively out of pocket if you have a ding, particularly if a third party is involved. But you don’t have to. I was chatting about this with a Kiwi fellow*, who expressed surprise that car insurance is a compulsory purchase over here, but also held the view that it’s probably more sensible.

 
Shane - a chap who picked me up whilst I was hitching in NZ.
Is he insured? Who knows?
 

Part of the reason that insurance isn’t mandatory is that there is an amount payable with the car’s registration, which will cover the driver for injury or medical claims if an accident is caused where they’re at fault. Obviously this is quite restrictive, and proper insurance is required to cover against damage to vehicles or property.

Although there is debate in New Zealand as to whether car insurance should be compulsory, clearly the Kiwis are in no hurry. So this begs the question – do you think we’ve got the car insurance rules right in the UK? What, if anything, would you change? Is there any country which, to your mind, has a better approach to car insurance?

*I feel I must point out that I didn’t spend my whole time talking to people about car insurance. I’m not a complete dweeb.