Now that the EU is dictating common-rated gender car insurance premiums in future, fewer young women drivers will be able to afford to learn to drive and those that can will surely face the full force of motor insurance scams which are more likely to be caused by and involve men.

According to Confused.com the average fully comprehensive car insurance premium rose by 38% in 2010 and now stands at £695. These rates are influenced by the fact that 15% of young drivers currently cause 31% of all accidents leading to 40% of all motor insurance claims. As things stand, the average premium for a 17-20 year old male is currently a staggering £2,976 and for women £1,694. Come December 2012 women will pay considerably more than they do now and men slightly less we think – either way this is more than most young drivers will pay for their first car.

Which is why I see this as the equivalent of a new and unfair ‘tax’ on young females in particular from working and middle class families, facing higher University fees on the horizon and who probably can’t afford to drive in future now that the cost of insurance will rise so much. The truth is that  children from more wealthy families stand a much better chance of their parents paying for their car, their insurance and their education. Which seems unfair to me.

No wonder insurers are worried if fewer (of the safer) motorists can afford their products in future.

The reason car insurance premiums have risen so much for men and women drivers alike is to pay for accidents caused by uninsured drivers, for staged ‘cash for crash’ accidents and the ever increasing practice of submitting fraudulent claims. All of these have a self fulfilling and cyclical feel to them in that the higher the premiums, the more appealing it is to drive uninsured or to prepare a fraudulent claim; therefore the higher the premiums need to be to pay for them and so on…

Confused.com wants better data sharing between the DVLA and insurers to help reduce instances of fraud. Quite right. They also want the test to be harder but we see this as a crude method to clobber young women again when we aren’t the real risk on the roads. It’s the young men who cause the majority of serious accidents remember, being much more confident drivers more likely to put their foot down, and who tend to pass the test after fewer lessons than more cautious women. Which is perhaps why we are the safer drivers I feel.

So any attempt to make the driving test tougher for us is likely to hit young women harder than young men; and cost us even more to pass than it does already.

This is all such a mess.

In an attempt to be seen as politically correct when dealing with Mars and Venus matters we are clobbering less confident and more cautious young women drivers when we should be tackling the more accident-prone male mindset here. We should rate men as the known risk they are, invest some of their premium in gender marketing & education and reward the god male drivers. Is that so very difficult to do? And similarly with women…

Just don’t rate women the same as men when we aren’t.

Making the driving test harder, re-assessing the Pass Plus scheme, getting insurers to offer discounts for those who have had additional training and increasing the use of telematics devices (which Aviva pioneered and discontinued for cost reasons…) should all be reviewed of course.

But the penalty for being caught driving uninsured is ludicrously low – a maximum £1,000 with an actual average fine of £200. When they have saved so much money on not being insured? Who thought that formula up I wonder?

We should all be expected to wear our insurance on our windscreens like tax and any car with out of date or non existent evidence of insurance (this applies to SORN’d cars too I believe) should be reported by passing motorists. The penalties need to be a lot more realistic and punitive. If it was down to me I’d confiscate cars and licenses and make those that offend pay the costs of doing this.

Something needs to be done to stop women becoming the soft target for even more unfair increases in their insurance.

FOXY Steph

If you feel this is unfair, please join FOXY Lady Drivers Club and add your voice to ours – women drivers need to be heard not forgotten after the EU ruling.

According to the Driving Standards Agency one in eight learner drivers, including female motorists, don’t know how to (or want to perhaps) carry out basic maintenance on their cars.

Comma Oils have picked up on this, to recommend that drivers, male and female, should pay more attention to simple vehicle checks such as inspecting oil levels.

I agree and know from my experience within FOXY Lady Driver Club just how expensive this engine neglect can be.

But my main concern, as always, is to do with the fact that many learner drivers cannot afford new or nearly new cars and, without appreciating the safety imperative, may choose to scrimp and save on maintenance including checking their tyres and getting their car serviced regularly, not realising that their car might be dangerous as a result.

And too few motorists, men and women drivers alike, check before buying a used car to see if it has been regularly maintained and serviced. They are more inclined to judge the car by its looks and price; often oblivious to the fact that a neglected car will let them down soon and expensively – it’s just a question of time.

More worryingly vehicle safety is rarely addressed by those who buy new cars either – many  drivers (not just women) treat their new car much as they do a household appliance. Enjoy it when it’s new and under warranty then sell it and get a new one. In the case of the car (and pre-recession of course…)  this used to be just before it comes of MOT age!

No wonder many cars fail their first MOT after such treatment.

All this (but the safety reason mainly), is why FOXY membership includes free car fitness checks so that busy women who appreciate all this but prefer to get the professionals to do this for them, can pop along to their nearest FOXY listed, female friendly garage to get this done for them.

And because they have signed the FOXY Promise, they can be trusted to look after the female motorist and not overcharge them.

Job done, car safe, engine taken care of, value preserved… sounds the foxy formula to me!

FOXY Steph

I was invited on to Liverpool’s CityTalk Radio yesterday, on Paul Jacobs early evening programme, to say how Tory party’s road spokesman Robert Goodwill’s proposals about the driving test might affect women drivers.

Allegedly, routine tasks like parallel parking, three point turns and reversing round corners are to be removed from the test itself, to be signed off by instructors in advance when they believe their pupils can do these things well enough in real life rather than during a stressful driving situation like a driving test.

Paul Jacobs took the tongue in cheek opportunity to suggest that women would welcome this proposal as most of us can’t do these things… a point I was quick to disabuse of course.

The fact is that driving lessons don’t teach anyone to drive, only experience added to theory can, and it is young men not young women drivers who are the ones that cause most accidents (96% of all dangerous driving offences and 86% of speeding offences are caused by men) so that gender should be the communications target, not women.

Furthermore, novice drivers, who are usually young, used to being told what to do in life and short on driving experience for obvious reasons, are greatly at risk and put others at risk during their first three years of driving (one in five new drivers will have an accident in their first year of driving and this rises to one in three if aged 17 to 20 years).

This is the important issue not the sideshow of stressful test conditions causing excessive nerves.

I’m not sure why the Tories are involved here? Is this a vote puller in any way? Will the young voters be impressed? Could it be that the numbers of learner drivers are falling and this could have a knock on effect on road taxes in future, and the Tories will need all the money they can raise when they next get into Government?

Either way, making tests easier is not the solution.

Why not try more female instructors for a change and see if that reduces the misguided confidence that too many young drivers have? Taking the car dealership experience, that I do know about, many men prefer to buy a new car from a female sales person because they can ask her questions they wouldn’t admit to a man they didn’t know the answers to.

There may be some gender dynamics to be exploited in a similar fashion using a greater number of female instructors (some 20% of the workforce…) to male pupils rather than the male to male relationship and that gender’s innate interest in the performance of cars and speed.

And more refresher tests soon after the test when novice drivers can relearn some of the theory in the light of their driving experience. And then regularly for the rest of us. Who can say they wouldn’t benefit from the likes of an IAM’s driving course every ten years – especially if it meant lower car insurance premiums for us all, not just women drivers.

FOXY Steph

PS: Other than representing women drivers’ best interests on the radio, find out how FOXY Lady Drivers Club can help women drivers run safer and greener cars, save money and have a friend to turn to when motoring gets stressful…