I agree with it, mainly because every girl my age I know that owns a driving license is useless to the point where I wouldn't get in a car with them. There is my friend Yasmin who banged her head on the window while trying to lean her head out to reverse park, forgetting the window was closed. Then my friend Esme, who I happened to come across driving home from work, in the overtaking lane of a two lane 30mph limit bridge, doing 22mph while texting and trying to change the CD in her car, but that's an improvement on her 40mph curb mounting while trying to wave at someone she knew. Not to mention Bethany who drove 20 minutes from work to home at 10pm with her lights off the entire trip. For some reason their insurance is still cheaper than mine, even after my 2 years no claims.
Every male driver I know has had at the very least a small accident bar myself. It makes perfect sense to me why lasses have lower insurance premiums. They, in general, don't see a roundabout and think "I'm having some of that".
I did hit a curb at around 10-15 mph in my first snowfall, and I've fallen off my motorcycle on both the street and track, but none ever required an insurance claim. The one exception was a racing incident last year when I broke my collar bone. I had to make a health insurance claim for that one. Still no auto insurance claims.
Well I can add you to that list. I didn't mention that insurance claims were made, just stated every male driver I know has had at least a small accident.
I must say I am quite happy about this decision as it's finally waking a few people up to how much control the eu or european courts have over our lives despite us not having a referendum on our so-called membership.
Nor have any of my friends (I don't hang around with idiots who think it's funny to go roundabout bashing, and it's very easy to do here in Milton Keynes).
Whereas nearly all of the females I know have had to make several claims, one trashed 3 cars and had put more than a few dents in the fourth in a single year.
One crashed into a bus stop, another one went through the front of the local beer shop.
There's little point in saying you know girls who've crashed and lads who haven't. The statistics don't lie. Young lads are more likely to crash, and from my own observations of the road it rings true. I know plenty of lads who've had big crashes, and some who nearly died because of it. I have never heard a lass say "well basically I was doing 90mph over a bridge and lost the rear end and went into a lamp post".
I don't know the intricacies of running an insurance companies but by their very nature they do have to assume certain things via stats. I am pretty sure the cost of doing individual quotes for each and every driver must be very very expensive and not profitable.
I've known a few "girl racers". One of whom spun her Ford Puma on a wet roundabout with me sat in the passenger seat, and for whatever reason, went off on a country road in the middle of the night and rolled a couple of times. Happily nobody was sat in the passenger seat and she walked away.
God knows how many other near misses she had.
These are the exceptions that annoy good young male drivers as much as being lumped in with the "boy racer" mob themselves.
A flat rate for everybody would be unfair, that I agree with, and the dangerous drivers would be paying tens of thousands of pounds for their first few years of driving if it were done individually, which would be prohibitive, and would increase that premium further still, and increase the number of uninsured drivers on the road (since the penalty is relatively small as it is anyway). Which brings me back to the real problems of massive personal injury claims and uninsured drivers whose crashes are paid for by everybody whilst not contributing anything to the pot.
If you can't discriminate on sex, then you also can't discriminate on age, or on many other factors - which basically makes giving an insurance quote possible.
As much as i'd love to see cheaper insurance, I somehow think we'll find all females policies going up to that of males, and yet again the insurers claiming "theres no money in it".
If they suddenly have much larger profit margins (which if suddenly their total revenue increases with higher average premiums would be the case, assuming claims remain as expected), then competition will drive average prices back down. Companies will give up a bit of that larger margin in an attempt to get more customers, which would increase their total revenue, of course.
FWIW, both my older brother and younger sister did the same thing their first snowfall with a license: put the car into a curb and damaged a tire and rim. It was more a matter of inexperience than anything else, IMO.
Heres another thought - not all factors can be accurately predicted by statistical analysis.
For example - because many young drivers buy small cars that are meant to be cheap to insure / run (i.e. Saxo etc), and then crash them - insurers often quote more for such cars instead of the next models up (i.e. something like an Astra / Focus), as these are crashed less.
However, because of this many young drivers can no longer afford to insure the smaller cars - and instead go for something slightly larger. The risk profile is exactly the same (and as the cars are slightly faster with a higher mass, arguable more so), but the premium is less.
Fun fact, it is because of Femnazi's that this happened. They were bitching that women have to pay more for health insurance (not the NHS though, which makes everyone pay the same percentage of their earnings) than men. Wanting males and females to pay the same. But through their meddling they set the ball rolling for gender equality fights in other insurance industries and will now have to pay more for car insurance too. Personally it makes me laugh like a bastard.
[edit: Women statistically crash more often, but they are low speed impacts where the damage is so minor it rarely goes through insurance, but men write off more cars (a trend which in recent rears has been reversing, but rather than upping girls premiums, they upped boys and adults over 30 but under 50). Personally my only bump happened about 2 weeks after passing my test, misjudging where a wall was while reversing in a Transit at night and hit it with the bumper. Only damage was a small graze in the bumper.]
Instead of lowering the rate for men, they should raise the price for women to the same level. I think automotive laws in the UK are designed to discourage people from driving at all, so that should work nicely.
It is easy to see why women's premiums are lower, though. As mentioned, while females may tend to have a higher accident-to-mileage ratio than men, they are less costly, generally speaking. That's why they have lower premiums; on average, they cost less for insurance companies. I don't see how that's inequality... I guess that's why I'm not involved in some screwy parliament, though; I have a brain.
Even if it's some trucks random diesel spill, one day, Wrong corner, wrong gear, wrong speed........ SPLAT
While it's more than possible to avoid many/most incidents by an application of observation, accidents can happen.
Women just tend to be better at applying observation - less testosterone and generally less of an opinion of involnerability.
The real problem is that your all too mobile and need to learn to stay put. Only certain types of people are alowed to travel freely - and your generally not it.
EU and American (yes, Canada and Mehico) don't want you to drive so all your costs will go through the roof.
What's the cost of fuel for you again ???
Another problem seems to be that the cost of repairing any of these plastic cars is so high that your insurance costs (unless your my age with a full no claims for life policy - suck on that !) are astronomical.
And when you consider that you can't park it anywhere and you can't take it into a city without it costing even more (and then it will be stolen by some equality seeking Reich EU member) I wonder why you bother.
At this rate it will become impossable to raise rates on teenage drivers because that would be prejudice as well. Political correctness has out done its self now.
In most cases men drive over women when they are together so this could explain (a little bit, not all) of the accident ratio difference.
You do know that you're talking about insurance companies don't you? Everything is $$$$$$$$ to them it seems. (and most businesses for that matter any more).
I'll admit, 3 days after insuring my car I managed to drive into the back of a pickup that had a *bright* yellow mini gritter attached to the tailgate. Stupid mistake, I was being your average cocky/stupid 17 year old. Thankfully it didnt go through the insurance but I could just be another statistic. It can, and certainly will, happen!
I just think what has been done is fair. Both genders will have their fair share of accidents. I know lads who have gone at ridiculous speeds round blind corners only to meet a ditch or some poor bloke sticking to the rules, ye I know many girls who have parking accidents (I was with my girlfriend & she managed to plough into a Golf because she slipped with the pedals.)
Everyone is a risk, to themselves and others, so its only fair we pay equal rates...