A few things in the last few days have made me very thankful not to own a car. One was a story on MoneyBox on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend which exposed the culture of referral fees and kickbacks between garages, tow-trucks, insurance companies and claims lawyers. Once you've had an accident your details become like gold dust, and huge amounts of money changes hands. Apparently that is why car insurance gets increasingly extortionate even as accident rates go down. This makes me angry on so many different levels, the key one being- you might have died. You have experienced a major trauma. And then every time you pick up the phone it is a weasly cold-calling lawyer type pouring poison in your ear and encouraging you to sue someone. Eugh.
Love the photo! :)
ReplyDeleteAs a trucker who occassionally has to come into the city from 'up North' I think it's about time cyclists had to be registered and insured before going on the streets, you are all anfatal accident waiting to happen, blinkered to get from A2B without a care for anything else on the road.
ReplyDeleteI'm not against cyclists at all, far from it, but it seems that as soon as feet hit those pedals the basic instinct in a human for survival disappears and the self-destruction button gets pressed until you arrive at your destination.
Think about this .. a 40ton truck takes over 200ft to stop at 30mph, a 40ton truck is about 55feet long - thats 6 wheels that will go over the cyclist that didn't stop at a junction!