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drivers
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
im sorry if this seems harsh but i think once you turn 65 you should be made to re-take your driving test because some oldies are fucking lethal on the roads
.. including my (god love him) grandad who is serving in and out of cars tooting the horn snarling at my nan when she tries to make suggestions hurling abuse at other drivers
.. as for my other grandad, he does about seventy miles an hour in his little metro along country roads with a pipe hanging out of his mouth sitting bolt upright with his crazy little hat seatbeltless !
and what i dont think is fair at all is all the bad press about drivers my age which in all fairness most young boy drivers can be dickheads (i dont know any which havent had a crash !) but old people are bad too and i know a few old people who wont think twice about drinking well over the limit and then driving home .. but if someone my age did that there would be an uproar about ''kids today .. who do they think they are getting hammered then driving so irresponsible and careless could have killed someone'' but if its an older person its ok because thats what they did in their day.
sorry about the rant.
.. including my (god love him) grandad who is serving in and out of cars tooting the horn snarling at my nan when she tries to make suggestions hurling abuse at other drivers
.. as for my other grandad, he does about seventy miles an hour in his little metro along country roads with a pipe hanging out of his mouth sitting bolt upright with his crazy little hat seatbeltless !
and what i dont think is fair at all is all the bad press about drivers my age which in all fairness most young boy drivers can be dickheads (i dont know any which havent had a crash !) but old people are bad too and i know a few old people who wont think twice about drinking well over the limit and then driving home .. but if someone my age did that there would be an uproar about ''kids today .. who do they think they are getting hammered then driving so irresponsible and careless could have killed someone'' but if its an older person its ok because thats what they did in their day.
sorry about the rant.
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Comments
I think that insurance companies think the statistics prove that males under the age of 25 are even more lethal.
If people are to retake a test after many years of driving it should be a custom-made one testing their reaction times, lane changing behaviour and other such factors, rather than the test new drivers face.
Worst was on the A1 she was doing 40.
so? thats a different thread.
Are men involved in more accidents? Proportionally speaking with regards to the amount of men vs. women, actually no. Are men involved in accidents requiring larger pay outs? Yes. Do men on average earn more than women? Yes. So it's such a big leap to say men may possibly on average own more expensive cars than women, so when an accident occurs the payout is more.
But with it still mainly being men working and women not, the need for a car is arguably greater for men who commute. Thus they're less elastic in their decision to drive, thus you can charge more. Housewives are arguably more elastic, so by reducing the cost you get more customers.
It is outdated and not fair, as is the age discrimination which is daft. But insurance companies are a business at the end of the day. Can anyone think of a reason why men, or women, would be better or worse drivers? Young drivers - less experience. But the reasons cited are often that men are more aggresive, and whilst this may be true in some cases, it's not true in all. I know just as many aggresive female drivers as I do male, it has nothing to do with biology at the end of the day.
And the age you are has nothing to do with your ability either, it should be your experience. So a 21 year old with 4 years experience is a better driver than the 28 year old who's been driving for a year. But I'm not sure the insurance companies would agree.
Are you drunk? The point you obviously missed was that one can't point fingers at old people being bad drivers when it's the younger drivers that have the bad statistics. :rolleyes:
what does being drunk have to do with anything ?
statistics schmistics
And what does my post about young drivers NOT have anything to do with the issue raised by the OP?
This is P&D, where statistics mean EVERYTHING. Personally, I agree with everyone having to take another safe driving test, although I'm not sure how they would measure it. I only passed my test last year, but I wouldn't pass the test again if I had to take it now as I don't drive like a learner any more. However, I feel that I'm a better and safer driver.
It is true that statistically younger male drivers tend to have accidents that cost more than female and older drivers. However, the frequency and extra cost of such accidents is in no way accurately reflected in the huge amount that they get charged more. The important point to mention here is that insurance companies use this age discrimination to subsidise their older customers, who are then far more likely to buy more profitable forms of insurance from the same company, such as house insurance or life insurance.
As for older drivers, I would simply suggest that anyone banned from driving must then re-take their test. Because there are plenty of perfectly safe drivers who might struggle with nerves, and plenty of dangerous drivers who can drive carefully for 45 minutes if they need to.
On the old people though, I saw one almost crash today. He was waiting at a roundabout (after coming down a hill and just missing a parked car). One car went past, then another, and I was thinking Jesus Christ, there was plenty of time to go then. But no, he waits until a BMW was about to come round, hesitates, then pulls out right in front of it, forcing her to slam her brakes on. Everyone makes mistakes, but I think it's pretty obvious when you're driving behind someone who shouldn't be on the road.
Old people may cause accidents by dithering, but it's the young buck who gets fed up and whizzes past them only to meet a tree coming in the other direction. It's the youngster who is likely to being doing donuts in the car parks, roaring away from lights and generally driving at two speeds - zero and fast. Statistically speaking their accident rate is higher and more likely to result in injury of death.
Old people on the other hand have learned how to control a care better, but are more likely to drink/drive.
Whilst men will have more accidents this is often because they are likely to drive more miles (per person) than women. They are also more likely to drive faster than women and have company cars (therefore taking more risks)...
Remember the insurance business is based on predjudice not individuality.
As for the OP, why wait until someone is 65? Why not every ten years, why not every five. I guarantee you that the poor driving skills start kicking in soon after you pass your test.
As an actuary and/or chartered insurer would you be able to state by how much young male drivers are being ripped off?
No I couldn't give you exact figures, and I doubt such figures exist outside of each individual company, but a representative of Norwich Union freely admitted on television that they keep their rates for young drivers artificially high so that they can offer cheaper insurance to their older drivers (which was certainly my experience of that company when looking for car insurance). Obviously it varies from company to company, but the entire feature of the programme (on News 24) was the increasing number of companies that are deciding to do this to a far greater degree than they already did. Might explain why women/old people only insurance is rarely actually the cheapest insurance for those groups of people - no young men to give them cheaper prices.
Exactly!
To be fair, I've paid him good money and it's about time he fulfilled the contract
Then there's the fact that good driving is not really rewarded in any way. A shit driver will - until he or she crashes - generally get away with being a shit driver even if the shit driving is breaking the law. More traffic cops is the only way to effectively crack down on that, though.
I think that there should probably be a two-part initial test, which would at least allow for some M-way or slightly more advanced stuff in the second part. Refresher or advanced courses should be encouraged in some way other than just insurance discounts (because insurance just exists as a tax on good drivers anyway).
I'd suggest that new drivers are engine-limited, but that's largely unenforceable I think really.
At the age of 22, I'm learning to drive at the moment. What I've observed is a lot of young men are over-confident behind the wheel. Speaking to my driving instructor merely confirms this impression. Many men believe that, now they've passed their test, that there is no more to learn. Anyone sane would be able to deduce this analogy as bollocks. In three weeks time, I will be trying my test. I hope to pass on my first attempt. I am determined not to become one of these boy-racers. Thanks to these wankers driving souped-up cars that they probably didn't even pay for themselves, young men all have to pay ridicilously high insurance premiums. I've heard of some 17-year old guys having to pay over £2000 a year. How the hell are they supposed to find that kind of money if they're in education? My insurance premium will be less extreme - it looks set to be between £800 and £1000. That is money I can ill-afford. I'm meant to be saving for university. In effect, even when I have passed my test, I still won't be able to drive a car. How daft is that?
However, I have a nagging suspicion that the car and insurance costs of most 17-year olds are paid for by their parents. We see drivers going out thinking "oh, my daddy paid for this, if I trash it, he'll pay for the repairs". My sister, aged 18, drives herself to college most days of the week. Her car is a fairly old Mazda, which was previously owned by my mum. Most of her mates are bragging that they've got brand new cars from Mummy and Daddy. With this sort of dismissive attitude towards what is essentially a huge slab of metal, is it any wonder that they have so many accidents?
The elderly are far from perfect as drivers, but the 16-25 year olds to whom this site is aimed towards, given our record, are in no position whatsoever to complain.
It's not the fault of the wankers who cause accidents that the insurance companies base their prices on prejudice and discrimination though, is it? There is absolutely no causality between being a man, and being more likely as an individual to make an expensive claim, just statistics that as a group, men tend to make the highest claims. Similarly, young black men statistically being involved in more crime, isn't evidence that being a young black man will make you as an individual more likely to commit a crime. We don't accept formal prejudice in any other area of life, so why here? I don't even blame the insurance companies, I blame the governments for allowing it, and the people who support the policy, despite usually opposing every other form of discrimination on the planet (often for selfish reasons I might add).
i was quoted just over 3k for low insurance group cars (106 etc)
its an absolute joke
:yes: I agree. I think there's a similar thing for motorbikes. (actually, I think that's an age thing not whether they're a new rider)
And they will fuck up from time to time ... and its probably usually the young drivers that get impatient and take 'their chance'. Just have a read through any newspaper and invariably its the youngsters that are involved in a (non-motorway) crash.