Monday, June 25, 2012
Ignorance of the law can be rather crushing
How any person can grow up in Britain today unaware that car insurance is a must for any driver is beyond me.
Yet, according to Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) data, as many as one in ten young drivers is apparently ignorant of the legal requirement for motor insurance.How this can happen when car insurers are among the most prolific television advertisers makes the situation particularly baffling. Hardly an ad break goes by these days without some insurer or comparison website loudly trumping its claims. Who knows, perhaps those young drivers who are out of the loop are all watching the BBC. Perhaps they don’t even have televisions!
Well, here at Hoot we don’t advertise, but that’s only because we trust you to find us and don’t want to waste money on ‘bigging ourselves up’ only to have to reduce the quality of our service in order to fund our posturing.
As for uninsured drivers, they’re in for a torrid time in South Yorkshire, where police are now engaged in a serious crackdown which involves shaming drivers by displaying their vehicles and then, if they subsequently fail to take heed and buy insurance, crushing them within 14 days.
Photo © dave_7 via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: car insurance, MIB, Motor Insurers Bureau, uninsured drivers, young drivers
Friday, June 22, 2012
Bird poo wars
Bird poo.
It’s the bane of many a motorist’s driving days and can cause damage to paintwork as well as looking unpleasant.Recent research conducted by Halfords, however, might help road users fight against it. According to the company, red cars are targeted more than any other colour vehicle, and green cars are targeted the least.
Although there’s no real scientific basis for the results, the firm ran the study in several different cities and numbers never lie.
After red cars it was the blue vehicles which were pelted with poop the most. Next came black vehicles, then white, and finally silver was in the running just before green.
With this knowledge, perhaps drivers who hate to do war with bird, ehem, leavings, will purchase green cars, or buy a green cover for their vehicle to keep it safe.
Alternatively, they could try to avoid parking under trees or lamp-posts, but that can be difficult sometimes.
Good luck to all!
Photo © wwwesb via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: bird poo, colour, driving, Halfords, motorist, paintwork, parking, road users
Monday, June 18, 2012
The Britalian Job
Remember that great scene in the original version of The Italian Job – the Mini chase through the city streets?
Well, to celebrate the partnership between the car manufacturer, Team GB and ParalympicsGB, a brilliant re-make of that particular scene has been released. It’s been titled The Britalian Job.
Directed by Phil Churchward, who is also the lead director on Top-Gear, viewers can expect to see three Mini’s (red, white and blue) driven by medal-winning Olympians through the streets, alleyways, and subways of London, in pursuit of a thief who has stolen some Olympic gold medals.
It’s very entertaining and, I think, very well shot.
All the dangerous stunts were undertaken by trained professionals – our Olympians are good but, come on – so don’t try recreating any of the impressive moves anywhere on or off the UK’s roads.
I’m enamoured by this little homage to The Italian Job.
Have a watch of the action yourself and tell us what you think!
Labels: car manufacturer, Mini, Olympic, ParalympicsGB, streets, Team GB, The Britalian Job, The Italian Job, Top-Gear
Friday, June 15, 2012
Post office trips
My elderly neighbour is always asking me to drive to the post office for her and collect her most recent purchase from the shopping channel she’s addicted to.
She’s a sweet old woman and bakes me a cake every time to say thank you, but to be honest I was really pleased to hear that Royal Mail will no longer be dropping ‘sorry we missed you’ cards through people’s doors.
Yes, reportedly from now on – unless you opt out of it of course – the Royal Mail will happily deliver your package to a neighbour if you’re not in to receive it yourself.
So, no more trips to the post office for me!
I’ll just have to be careful not to invite my neighbour in when she comes to collect something from me. If I have anything to do that day, I’ll have to cancel. That lady can talk for hours!
Photo © didbygraham via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: deliver, drive, neighbour, post office, Royal Mail, sorry we missed you
Friday, June 8, 2012
Road closed due to a lot of hot air
There’s a strong likelihood that at some point in your driving career you’ll encounter something on the road that you weren’t expecting, be it a family of ducks crossing to the nearest lake, or a children’s football game down a quiet residential road.
If you’re driving safely, these odd surprises shouldn’t be a problem, but it’s true that some may become stories to tell for years onwards if the incident was unusual enough.
Over the Jubilee weekend many motorists will have picked up a great story.
A hot air balloon with sixteen people on board began flying so low – because of a lack of breeze – that the balloon’s operator had to contact the police to explain that he had to land on the road or else risk hitting people’s houses.
Thankfully, everything went smoothly. One of the people who had been riding in the balloon’s basket stated, “When we came into land I think we hit a tree and a road sign which probably softened the landing.
“When we touched down we all cheered. No one was panicking and the police grabbed the basket to stop it dragging or blowing away and we all got out.”
Phew! That was a close one – I bet a hot air balloon landing near the road is not something drivers expect to see every day. Now that’s a story!
Photo © Eric Lim Photography via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: crossing, drivers, driving, hot air balloon, Jubilee, motorists, police, residential, road
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Learning lessons
When you’re only just starting out at something, whatever it is, there’s no point pretending that you know it all. Even if others don’t find you out, you yourself will.
This maxim applies more to being a young driver than it does doing most things. After all, driving can be a matter of life and death, so it’s always worth admitting what you don’t know and moving on from there.
With this in mind it’s good advice to learn from the tragic example of 21-year-old young woman driver from the South of England who lost her life in a recent accident.
Only three-months after passing her test, the girl was approaching a roundabout in her Ford Ka car, when, apparently following the instructions of her satnav, she took the first exit.
Little did she know that it was actually a slip road and that she was travelling in the wrong direction. As a result, she collided head-on with an oncoming BMW.
The girl’s mother has wise words of warning for any young driver, “Satnavs are a help to youngsters on the road who don’t know where they are going but young drivers have so much to think about.
“If they are following the satnav they can’t always be aware of the road.
“If the satnav tells you to get off there you just think it’s telling you the right thing. She believed she was doing the right thing and didn’t question it.”
Furthermore, she thinks that satnavs “should be included in some way in driving lessons... maybe it would stop a tragedy like this happening again”. An interesting idea, and one that is certainly worth of consideration.
What do you think?
Photo © dullhunk via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: car, Ford Ka, young driver
Friday, June 1, 2012
The future looks sunny
At last, summer is here and the sun is out.
So many of us young people seem to be solar powered these days. In the dark winter months, we stay at home after work playing computer games, surfing the net and watching television, then suddenly the sun’s out and our solar powered social lives, solar powered smiles and solar powered sun tans bring us into the parks, pubs and sports clubs.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a viable solar powered car to go with it all? For a generation that has grown up with anxieties about global warming and our role in minimising the impact, there would be very few young drivers unenthusiastic about the chance to drive about town in a solar powered vehicle.Right now a team of students from Bochum University are trying to travel round the world in an exclusively solar powered car, christened the SolarWorld GT.
As a rule, they’re not allowed to take any power from the grid. "We want to show that it's possible to drive round the world on solar power. And if the sun doesn't shine, then we have to wait around in the same place for two or three days,” said one of the team.
Before you ask what the point is of a vehicle that requires constant high-intensity sunshine, remember that the technology is improving and that solar panels are predicted to become considerably more efficient over the next few decades.
So, while it may not be us who get young driver car insurance quotes for solar powered vehicles, it could well be our kids. I, for one, look forward to this day.
Photo © isox4 via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: car insurance quotes, solar powered, young drivers