VAN INSURANCE NEWS ROUNDUP: 7 DAYS ENDING 24 OCTÂ 2014:
Take car of your car keys, gents; most insurance policies don’t cover their loss. Then again, your keys might not be needed all that soon anyway.
Normally losing your car keys is a mild to moderate inconvenience, or at least it used to be before the advent of things like immobilisers and interlocks. Nowadays if you lose your key – and all those integrated circuits that go with it – you could end up having to shell out shedloads of cash to get new specialised keys made, just so you can get back in your car or van.
What makes matters worse is that car insurance and van insurance companies routinely don’t cover replacement of these expensive little pieces of kit. In fact, one insurance comparison site recently looked into the problem, discovering that out of some 230 policies only half provided replacement cover. An additional 28 per cent offer the cover as an extra – one that carries an additional price tag – and the last 22 per cent leave you high and dry completely.
Then again, you might not need to worry about needing your keys much longer anyway. At least according to Transport Minister Claire Perry who thinks that the advent of the driverless car is going to revolutionise the UK.
Soon we’ll all just be sitting in the back seat whilst our cars ferry us about from point A to point B in impotent peace, according to Ms Perry. What this means for the white van man can be anybody’s guess; I can’t imagine that driverless vehicles are going to replace delivery drivers any time soon, especially since it’s a rather complex job for a glorified satnav to do on its own without any help.
Still, the Transport Minister is sticking to her guns, pointing out that a new research study found that many Brits would welcome the robo-cars on or nation’s roadways. Me, I’m not so sure – while I like the pure science-fiction of having an advanced computer capable of driving about in traffic, I’ve also seen all too many movies where the inevitable robot uprising occurs when artificially intelligent machines decide to murder or enslave the human race. I think I’d rather just have a few burly blokes motoring about in Ford Transits and getting into accidents than having to bend the knee to my new robotic overlords, don’t you?