VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 27 FEB 2015:
If you think you’re safe on the streets surrounded by your fellow white van men, think again – the cops are using vans and HGVs to spy on motorists.
Think it sounds like something out of a poorly written spy novel? Think again – police are outfitting ‘spy trucks’ in the form of heavy goods vehicles and vans in order to keep an eye out for mobile phone offences like texting or making calls. Being caught red-handed can lead to heavy fines – and in some cases, a nasty surprise when you go to renew your commercial van insurance at the end of the year.
That’s right, you heard it here first: car insurance and van insurance providers have always been keen to charge you as much as they possibly could and will use any excuse to do it, but in some instances an insurer may decide you’re just too much of a risk. This could be the fate of any motorists nicked by one of these undercover lorries; with individuals who text and drive being bloody menaces on the road because they’re so distracted, more and more insurers are flatly refusing to insure any of these lunatics at all, let alone charge them miserably high premium prices.
On the one hand I’m all for punishing idiotic drivers who think they’re special and that the laws don’t apply to them when it comes to careless driving. I can’t even imagine how many lives might be saved by stopping these bastards in their tracks. At the same time it does seem a little overreaching to use vans and lorries as high vantage points to spot anyone thumbing through their mobile phones whilst sitting in traffic.
Honestly though, if it makes the roads safer I can’t really argue with it. All I can do is offer the warning to anyone out there who thinks they can get away with it. Turns out you won’t be able to, so don’t even try. For pity’s sake, if you need to send a text that badly pull over on the side of the roadway and let the rest of us get to work without risking death.