It happens...

[Rossgo]

far to many times throughout the country and the world. However in our country it is illegal to drive without insurance.

We all know that we pay far over the odds for insurances and we all know that we fund the big wigs holiday homes in a quiet little village in a beautiful part of the world but if we paid less would our (i will talk for the UK) countries driving/ riding ability slip and would we drive/ ride less responsibly?

Therefore i ask another question, should we ALL be made to use camcorders (GoPro etc) so this could lessen our insurances premiums and could potentially save us the hassle of writing statements etc...if its all on video then surely the evidence is done?

Forgive me if this has already been posted before but wouldnt mind hearing everyone's opinions on this subject

[Itchy]

Paying less wouldn't make me drive any worse, I still wouldn't want to be in an accident if I could help it. In fact, lowering premiums may reduce the amount of uninsured drivers on the road. Maybe not, but it's a possibility.

As for permanent cameras? Say goodbye to those cheeky sunday blasts then. Imagine scratching along like we do and having an accident. One where you're unable to get to the camera and delete any incriminating footage before it gets taken by the police. If it shows you travelling at legal speeds and doing everything by the highway code and somebody else is at fault, then cool. If it shows anything else, you've effectively handed the rope to the executioner.

[Rossgo]

I think your right on the decrease on the uninsured drivers. It wouldn't eradicate all uninsured drivers but certainly would help to lessen them. Some people just don't care and won't ever care but others might just help them to atcually get it.

As for the cameras I again think your right, we would be hit so much harder when (in most people's cases) cock up (speeding or whatever else some people do being cheeky while on road!) but I wonder if this would ever take over and be a idea that would be implemented at some stage in our life time. More and more people are using the roads nowadays so might be something that could take effect

[C00kiemonster]

Most cars and a growing set of bikes have data recorders built into their ECU these days for accident investigation anyway tbh, so the police can tell if they want to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_Data_Recorder

[Kwacky]

Half right. The Police can't get at most of them and car manufacturers aren't co-operating.

[C00kiemonster]

Better than half wrong I suppose

[Rossgo]

Typical...the car manufacturers won't tell anyone their ways! Though I was told some vehicles do have this technology didn't realise it was true mind!

[duke63]

Half right. The Police can't get at most of them and car manufacturers aren't co-operating.

Does this depend on the seriousness of the accident? I appreciate that this is your field, Kwacky and you probably know more than me.

There was a fatality on the M6 Toll last summer when my brother was driving my mom back to see us. He got caught in the traffic holdup.

The inquest was in the press last week. The driver of the car lost his wife when his car careered out of control and up the embankment beside the motorway and turned over. The police were able to confirm the VW Polo was driving at 92mph 5 minutes before the accident and at 75 mph when it crashed. Surely that sort of info could only have come from the car's ECU data?

[Kwacky]

They can use lots of sources of information to work out the speeds. Skid marks are still very good at giving information. The sort of speeds mentioned suggest that the higher speed was the speed before the vehicle started braking or at the start of the incident. The lower speed will be the speed at impact. From that they can work out, using a given time for standard reactions, at which point the driver reacted. Speed can be worked out from CCTV footage as well. Some satnavs can be used as can mobile phones.

I interviewed a police officer a couple of years ago. He was telling me that the higher end car market manufacturers can take loads of information from your car, but they won't tell the police where it is or how to get to it.

[Mac]

Half right. The Police can't get at most of them and car manufacturers aren't co-operating.

Really? It's commonplace for us to get a court order for the "black boxes" after a serious collision, and we have the equipment to download them. We also make it policy to seize and download mobile phones if there's any indication that phone use may've contributed to a collision.

Didn't mean the "really?" as in a "oh, really?" challenging sort of way, BTW just sincere curiosity about the differences in our laws. Also I may've misunderstood your post. We can download almost all makes of cars, but some of the older ones require the manufacturers help. They honor our court orders though.

[Rossgo]

I feel this is becoming a good informative thread :-)

[Kwacky]

That was a couple of years ago so things may have changed but that was the position when I spoke to a traffic cop.

That said in recent cases I've not seen any black box information used as evidence, but I (thankfully) don't deal with that many criminal RTC cases. Most of my work is in the civil courts. Again I've never seen any black box information used in civil proceedings.

I need to speak to an accident investigator this week. If I remember I'll ask him the question to see what the present position is.

[Mac]

Cheers, thanks

[bb41]

Insurance, what a blooming minefield. I'm sure they make it up as they go along.

I had a delivery of wood burning logs to my house over a year ago now, took the car out of the drive and parked it out of the way .

Wagon turned up , dozy driver got the delivery horribly wrong and emptied the whole load on my car.

Their insurance company arranged for the car to be collected on a break down truck and it was repaired .

Go to insure a few months later and I was told my premium had risen by 100.00 due to a claim. well on the dog and bone giving company a right ear bashing only to be told that even non fault claim will up the premium as I'd made myself high risk

So it's not just accidents it's other things as well.

Again when I sold my MV , cancelled insurance and expected to have at least 70-80 back...........11.00 !!! admin fees etc etc etc.

I'm sure there must be a better way of getting people insured . For instance when buying a new car or changing a used vehicle the car can not be legally yours until a valid insurance doc is found like when taxing on line. This way it will be easy to flag up by police on a database who does not have insurance without physically seeing it .

After 2 weeks a little bit of computer wizardry would pick up those which haven't but will also state when the car was sold from a previous owner making them exempt. or something like that.

8 years ago my youngest was hit off her ped by an uninsured , thankfully there was a chap on a bike behind her who saw it all and took photos of the vehicle, man and made sure she was OK. He also contacted me as she was in shock and took her to where she was going locally until I got there.

He gave me his contact details as a witness. Police could do nothing as the guy who's the vehicle belonged to said his brother was driving at the time and he had gone back home abroad. Lie.. he was the guy driving the car but the photo the biker took was not totally clear enough to prosecute.

18 months we had to wait to get any kind of payment for loss of ped, clothing and injury. Thankfully after a trip to A & E it was just swilling and bruising

Another scenario and this time it was said childs fault. At a road works lighted section the lights changed to green, woman in front moved off then my daughter, woman then suddenly stopped , daughter hit woman up the chuff.
Her little Ford Fiesta was well caved in but barely a mark on the womans car.
We offered to replace the bumper on the womans car as a sign of good will (Mr BB is a mechanic) and he would try and repair daughters car. It was mostly cosmetic so she could be rebuilt.
No claims through insurance until................ a month later and the woman was claiming for hire car for a week, new bumper plus re-spray and wait for it ...2k compensation for whip lash. Daughter hadn't barely moved, even a PCSO came and saw immediately after impact .

Filled out the forms but my daughter works for Thames Valley Police (no she's not an officer) but she works in the intelligence bureau. She asked if she could use the PCSO as a witness and was granted permission as he specifically asked if any medical treatment was needed, he obviously saw my daughters ID card and helped immediately (They are not all silly)
No word as yet and that was September last year

Sorry for long winded post, but insurance really is just to make you legal, woe betide if you have to make a claim

[Kwacky]

That £100 increase is nonsense. The fact that someone damaged your vehicle does not make you an increased risk. Time to change your insurers.

People pulling away from a junction then stopping suddenly is a classic when it comes to bogus claims. The firm I work for tackles these fraud rings and they've done a really good job in getting people sent to prison for it.

[Cavetroll87]

My personal little bug bear with Insurance is NCB, why is it that my Car and Bike NCB are not transferable between vechiles but as soon as I need a policy I have to declare ALL claims, even those on other vechiles as thats my driving record, Surely this should be one or the other, either its all linked or its all seperate, but nope, its whatever suits them best to make the most money...

[bb41]

It Is a bit of a joke the NCB.

I had an attempt on my bike but it came through on my car insurance renewal

I had another problem just last week when getting quotes for my 750. I thought I'd be totally upfront and declare can, crash bungs, and screen. Only 2 companies would quote and one of those was over 2k

Took off the crash protectors and it went down to 2oo and odd quid
Some companies are now calling luggage a mod as well, it's farcical now

[Kwacky]

How can crash bungs not be of benefit to an insurance company? Carole Nash were giving out full sets a couple of years ago.

Some people have found that custom bike insurers are cheaper than bike insurers if you've got a few modifications to it.

[Cavetroll87]

My guys were pretty good on the mods front, they basically said, as long as it doesnt alther the power by more than 10% (I think it was 10, may have been less) they didnt care, only problem is if I do bin it they will only repair with standard parts, I can live with that tho.

As for the crash bungs I have read that if you have full R&G kit apparently some insurers will lower your premium, dunno how true that is tho

[Rossgo]

My personal little bug bear with Insurance is NCB, why is it that my Car and Bike NCB are not transferable between vechiles but as soon as I need a policy I have to declare ALL claims, even those on other vechiles as thats my driving record, Surely this should be one or the other, either its all linked or its all seperate, but nope, its whatever suits them best to make the most money...

Agreed!