Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 21 Feb 2014:
This week, new research findings were revealed that will finally set the record straight as to who the worst drivers in the UK are – and where to find them.
Car insurance and van insurance companies simply love to charge you astronomical rates based on rather arbitrary things such as your postcode, with their twisted logic being that if you live in an area with statistically higher accident rates that immediately means you’re going to be a poor driver as well. Whether or not this is true, it’s undeniable that insurers aren’t going to let go of this criterion any time soon – and the DVLA has recently announced that there’s one particular place in the UK that has the highest concentration of terrible motorists.
The West Midlands seems to be the region with the biggest problem, the research data suggests, with the town of Smethwick holding the dubious honour of having the highest number of banned drivers on a percentage basis. Out of the more than 20,000 licence holders living nearby, 0.77 per cent of them have had their privileges stripped from them after repeated offences – and that’s the highest percentage in the entirety of the UK.
There’s even more shocking news this week as well though, where an independent research study discovered that there are certain kinds of Brits that are worse drivers than others. By profession, some of the safest motorists turn out to be people who drive a commercial van for a living – something that hopefully all those commercial van insurance companies will start taking into account!
This bit of information just chuffs me to bits. I enjoy any opportunity I can get to stick my thumb in the eye of anyone who swears up and down that van drivers are poor motorists, so this data quite simply fills me with unbridled glee. Meanwhile the professions most likely to be awful drivers are all in the medical field – in fact, a full 8 out of the 10 worst motorists in the UK by profession were all medical professionals like doctors, dentists, and other health workers.
This is simply vindicating to me, and I can’t wait to rub it in to everyone who trots out that old chestnut of the white van man being a terrible motorist. I wonder if this will lead to any higher rates for family doctors. Probably not, but it would be some nice poetic justice!