Posts Tagged ‘women drivers’

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Two stressful motoring stories

Monday, March 8th, 2010

We heard of two stressful motoring stories involving women drivers this weekend.

The first is about a once tidy looking car which has been parked alongside the High Street in a Sussex village for a while and has been the subject of malicious vandalism. The owner doesn’t know who but the car has been dented, tyres damaged and paint stripper applied to devastating effect. Nobody has seen anything of course.

The car is a P reg Ford so she has scrappage options if she’s quick but she isn’t really in the market for a new car. And the tax runs out next month so it’s decision time and a distressed sale price likely…

The second story is the result of a car accident. The Renault Clio in question is shared by two young sisters in Surrey. One had a minor but expensive ‘bump’ and the girls now need a replacement car and a good deal for the sad looking Clio.

In cases like these, the whole family is affected, providing alternative transport, helping deal with tricky insurance claims and providing an occasional shoulder to cry on.

We can now do our bit to ease the load.

FOXY Steph

Find out how FOXY Lady Drivers Club can support women drivers with female friendly motoring advice and information at stressful times

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Are you taking care of your car?

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

More than five million motorists are driving dangerous cars says breakdown recovery organisation Britannia Rescue. In a recent survey it found that the most common faults were worn tyres, defective brakes and faulty exhaust pipes.

This is worrying because worn tyres and faulty brakes can cause serious accidents and could lead to the car’s owner being held responsible for any damage or injuries caused.

Amazingly some 20% of drivers had known about the fault on their vehicle for more than six months but not bothered to do anything about it.

One in three said they could not afford to fix the problem whereas one in 10 said they did not have time to get their car repaired.

Try that as an excuse in law after an accident where someone was injured or killed.

Some 5% of vehicles in need of repair, says Britannia Rescue, had broken or missing wing mirrors, while about the same number had broken head or tail lights.

We find that some women drivers are so busy with family, domestic and job commitments that their car often loses out in terms of its regular care.

And the recent vehicle recalls by so many manufacturers, not just Toyota, tell us that nearly new cars are as likely as older ones to have serious safety issues so we need to remember to have our cars checked, maintained and serviced regularly to be sure they are safe.

Even those of us that do check our own car tyres, oil and water levels can miss important safety matters because we don’t know what else to look out for.

I’d worry that a dangerous car I owned might cause a serious accident that could kill or seriously injure my passengers, pedestrians or the occupants of other cars. Never mind the metal.

And increasingly we read that owners of poorly maintained cars have their insurance cover withdrawn when it can be proven that an accident was caused because the car owner had not carried out regular maintenance or had it serviced often enough.

I wouldn’t want to have that on my conscience for want of making an occasional hour to pop into my local garage for a free car check…

FOXY Steph

Find out how women drivers can save money on everyday motoring bills and enjoy free seasonal car checks.

Find out how to choose a good and female friendly local garage.

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Female feedback about Halfords Autocentre garages

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Halfords is to takeover Nationwide Autocentres. They are a chain of British garages not to be confused with the Building Society (which many people did apparently).

Yet there has been very little in the trade press about this business move and, come to think about it, very little from Nationwide Autocentres’ about their business under normal circumstances, other than when they are pitching for industry awards of course…

Shouldn’t the garage and dealership industry want to know more about Halfords’ plans so they can compete with them more effectively? They are a national chain and many individual garages could be affected by their strategy. I posted a question about this very subject on a leading trade forum a week ago and nobody has responded yet.

It would be different if Halfords sold cars of course… aftersales and garage services are rarely top of the motor industry’s agenda despite a £9bn car servicing market.

Can’t help thinking of rabbits in headlights, frogs in hot water and ostriches practising familiar ‘head in sand’ antics…

Independent garages should be interested of course because Halfords seems to be offering several female friendly garage services that they are not. Like opening on Sundays and providing low cost fitting of bulbs and wipers so women drivers don’t get their hands dirty and/or have to pay over the odds for these routine but often tricky jobs. I speak as a convert here, having had an exploding windscreen wiper on a snowy Sunday motoring journey in Yorkshire recently when Halfords came to my rescue…

They should also be interested because Halfords admits to targeting the female purse and employing female mechanics, who are unlikely to be ATA qualified to begin with I’d imagine…

They should then be interested because Nationwide Autocentres do not, as yet, offer local car collection and/or courtesy car services so those independents that do, have a sales advantage that could work well if employed NOW.

And finally they should be interested because Halfords is planning to invest in posh reception facilities which [most??] old Nationwide Autocentre locations do not have now…so once again, female friendly independent garages with smart waiting areas, near shops and with car collection services and courtesy cars could steal a lead here if they got their act together NOW.

But the two main reasons why so many independent garages could lose out is because they are so complacent about their local female motorist business AND because few independent garages are genuinely computer literate and are failing to meet the demand for relevant information before women drivers choose who to give their business to.

Nationwide Autocentres are not unique in offering online bookings for MOTs and car servicing of course but they did take many years to introduce their system so it should be fairly robust. And whilst many female friendly FOXY Choice garages do offer online bookings, a significant percentage of small garages still don’t realise that a website is how women tell if they can trust them. Too many still can’t handle emails professionally, expecting customers to phone them and thinking they’ll have the same customers next year…

I wish them luck of course but they do not have a winning card to play in their hand…

From FOXY Choice’s female friendly point of view and on behalf of all women drivers too, we see most competition as good and healthy providing new garage initiatives raise standards for all and are not just attention grabbing headlines without genuinely sustainable quality substance.

I firmly believe that the garage industry must do more to raise awareness of quality standards so that male and female motorists alike understand how to stay safer on our roads by cherry picking businesses that clearly want to be better than others. They can demonstrate this by signing up to FOXY’s independent female friendly business Promise, by investing in regular technician training, by having the latest diagnostic equipment and by collecting informed and unbiased feedback about good garages, not just lacklustre testimonials that are often written to order…

FOXY Steph

“Find the good. It’s all around you. Find it, showcase it and you’ll start believing in it.”

Jesse Owens, Gold medal Olympian, 1913-1980

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Secondhand rose car buyers

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

If you can’t afford a new car, with or without a scrappage, swappage or part exchange deal then it’s a used car for you, especially in a recession when money is tight. And very often that is the foxy thing to do regardless your budget, providing you choose the right model, a well looked after car and get a fair price. Less depreciation certainly.

Sadly many don’t get the new car buying process right and in 2009 HM Government’s Consumer Direct received 50,790 complaints about second-hand cars bought from independent dealers, up by 8% on the previous year and well over double the number of complaints about TVs and mobile phones.

Knowing that at least half of those buying a new car are likely to be women drivers, it is fair to imagine that a higher percentage of them will be buying and driving used cars than men. I say this based on speaking to many members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club where the typical family has children and two cars with Dad more likely to be covering motorway miles in the newer car and Mum more likely to be running the older car and doing local mileage with children on board.

And of course many secondhand cars are bought from private individuals who may or may not be known to the buyer. It is only when things go wrong (private sales are not recorded in the Consumer Direct 50,000 complaints remember) that the driver learns that they have no protection in law…

Yet as few as 20% of all HPI car checks are carried out by women drivers which means (I am guessing here) that they are more likely to have subsequet problems and be the complainants (or the affected drivers at least) about Arthur Daley-like practices in today’s secondhand car sales industry.

The Consumer Direct survey information is used by the Office of Fair Trading, Trading Standards and other enforcement bodies so it’s good news that the OFT has finally launched a report into this selling scandal and will tell us what they find in May this year…

I did email them to see if they wanted my feedback but they didn’t reply ;-(. This is what I would have said, if invited…

  • Poorly maintained, badly serviced and shoddily repaired cars are potentially dangerous so those who sell them should be named, shamed and fined heavily.
  • Based on my anecdotal experience, women drivers are particularly vulnerable here, especially older women living on their own and who think they can trust car dealers. They need to know their options and their rights.
  • All used cars sold via a dealer should be sold with a HPI check – whether a franchised or independent dealer.
  • All used cars sold via a dealer should also be sold with a signed and dated checklist to show the customer that all the important and safety related items have all been checked and are either fine or need attention.
  • All used cars via a dealer should be sold with a minimum of a 6 month warranty (as in law) which that dealer must honour.
  • All used cars sold by private individuals should either be sold caveat emptor (where SORN or for restoration project) or with a HPI, MOT and local car check carried out by an authorised garage. Then the buyer knows what he or she is in for… after all we have to declare the truth to sell a house and there are serious consequences now of not doing this.
  • Finally an unbiased organisation should adjudicate when sales go wrong. It would be good to see the onus put on helping the buyer more than the seller; make any conciliation service friendly and free and help the motorist take matters further in law if need be. I don’t think that a service involving dealers should be run by a motor industry organisation with a vested interest in selling trade membership, for example.

Of course it will be difficult to determine the reasonableness of all this when the dealer has bought a car online/at auction and depending on the age and mileage of the vehicle.

But when you see ITV’s Debbie Dingle in Emmerdale collude with a driver to sell a cut ‘n’ shut car that is unsafe and illegal you know that the law isn’t doing its job here and the cost of that is being borne by innocent motorists looking for a bargain and who are too trusting to realise that if a car is too cheap there will be a very good reason.

FOXY Steph

“It is our resonsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.”
Peter Ustinov

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Posted in buying a new car, car dealerships, women drivers | No Comments »

More pothole stories could mean more payouts

Monday, January 25th, 2010

During the bad weather potholes have got worse and many new ones have emerged.

Not only can they be responsible for axle and suspension failure costing women drivers dearly – an estimated £2.8 billion every year we are told, but they make driving more dangerous, especially for bike riders and in the dark.

Clearly few motorists know they can claim because local authorities only pay out something like £50 million in compensation claims due to poor road conditions, including potholes, each year.

The pothole problem is put down to the fact that road maintenance in England and Wales is underfunded by some £1 billion every year.

Fortunately many local authorities are taking positive action to remedy the situation before a serious claim for personal accident and/or injury lands at their door.

But just because there is a pothole doesn’t mean to say you will succeed in claiming. The test of reasonableness needs to be seen to apply – ie if the local authority had been told about the pothole and hadn’t done anything within a reasonable time then the claim is likely to succeed whereas if the local authority didn’t know about the pothole it will be argued that they would not have been able to rectify this.

Norfolk County Council’s spokesman John Birchall explained that “If the county council hasn’t had any opportunity to do anything about it then it is likely to be a cost on the car driver, which is why of course we want people to let us know about problems.”

With potholes estimated to cause as many as 1 in 5 mechanical failures a website called Potholes.co.uk can help you avoid the cost and misery they cause…and you’ll be able to check to see if your offending pothole had been reported previously to justify your claim.

Whether your car’s been damaged by a pothole and you want to know how to make a claim against a local council or you just want to report a poor piece of road, this is where to do it. And if you’ve got issues with potholes, let others know about them by reporting them and writing a story at this website (and there are others like it).

It’s important for as many women drivers as possible to report local potholes to give their local council the opportunity to repair them, make driving safer and if they don’t do this within a reasonable period of time, to help legitimate claims from other women drivers succeed.

Please tell your family and friends.

FOXY Steph

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Beware the 18th January on British roads…

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

According to Saga, 18 January has seen more road accidents involving the over 50s in the last four years, for some inexplicable reason.

19 December is claimed to be the second most unlucky day for the driving record…

They describe typical road accidents as older motorists driving into stationary objects (like cars and walls ;-) ) and put this down to poor visibility – either due to the driver’s eyesight or in dark conditions.

So Mum if you are reading this, PLEASE  don’t drive tomorrow and be sure to tell your friends…

And whilst Saga are too polite to mention gender, these sort of accidents do sound more like women drivers than men…

FOXY Steph

FOXY Lady Drivers Club - a unique and award winning  life assistance membership association for women drivers providing a package of support motoring services.

FOXY Choice - a unique garage website for women drivers that identifies and provides marketing services for genuinely good and female friendly garages, fast fits and UK car dealerships.

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Should older women pay more for car insurance?

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

The jury is out as always about the comparative driving ability of women and men drivers. This always depends on a lot more factors than just age (such as postcode, experience and claims) but provocative gender headlines are always popular!

Most of us are aware of the statistics about young men drivers causing more than 90% of all fatalities and serious injuries on the road. Hence the lesser risk assessment for car insurance premiums for younger female motorists.

Previous research suggested that men and women between the age of 30 and 60 were similarly competent drivers, judged by their driving record and insurance claims.

After that, older women had more accidents but they were often local bumps that were less serious and less expensive to repair. I had assumed that they were normally paid for by the motorist within their excess and I have always advocated the likes of the Driving Standards Agency’s Arrive Alive training programme (called Classic for older drivers) for organisations like the WI and TWG to include in their local membership events programmes.

But I read in Guardian Money that insurers are now charging women drivers aged 75 some 50% more for their car insurance than men. From the age of 80 this rises to a staggering supplement of 100%. Ouch.

Unsurprisingly, linked to predictable baby boomer birth rates and social trends the number of women drivers over 70 with licences has increased dramatically from 4% in 1976 to the 1990s figure of 20% and it is now at 36%. This will continue to grow as those of us with driving licences age and replace Mums and Grans who perhaps didn’t drive in their day.

The crossover point at which women start paying more than men has, according to AA Insurance, reduced from 60 years to 50 years in just six years. As other car insurance providers are still working on 60 years as the crossover point it makes sound sense for any 51 to 59 year old foxy women drivers to shop around for rates come renewal time, especially those who might be paying more than they need to AA Insurance…

In Guardian Money’s analysis Asda and Sheilas’ Wheels came out best and surprisingly, bearing in mind their retail market profile one of the biggest increases in premiums was made by Marks & Spencer followed by the RAC (53% more), Tesco (37% more) and LV= (28% more).

I know from experience that many older women drivers lack confidence for a multitude of reasons (divorce and widowhood might have forced them onto the roads after many years of willing back seat driving), can be more likely to get distracted than men (we call it multi-tasking and we often have children with us), are more likely to be doing local shopping mileage (so we WILL be the ones to have these local prangs) and may not have had training in motorway driving which requires a different skill set.

But is it just ‘older’ women that should have driving refresher courses? Even celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow  admit to needing help with their driving concentration skills… And after 10 years, wouldn’t it be a good idea for everyone to have a refresher driving training course to fend off all the bad driving habits we all seem to acquire?

I am all in favour of driving training courses for women drivers of all ages that bring women together locally, are social female friendly occasions rather than what might be perceived as patronising experiences and so that women can learn from their peers rather than superior males…

And perhaps the insurance companies would then reward an independent training scheme with lower premiums for women drivers, where applicable, just as they do with the PassPlus training scheme for novice drivers. After all their risk should be lower with fewer road accidents and motoring claims.

We might even include FOXY’s life assistance membership services including free car fitness checks and FOXY Choice’s female friendly approved garages so she can count on friendly motoring support and good local garages to help her run safer cars and who are measurably better than others.

FOXY Steph

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ACTONCO2 waste taxpayers money to blame women drivers

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

I can’t imagine it’s just me that feels irritated by the latest ActonCO2 advertising campaign stating ‘Drive five miles less a week by combining your journeys’.

Not only is this patronising message costing taxpayers millions to promote but it’s obvious that ACTONCO2 thinks male and female motorists are stupid enough to be driving unnecessary miles in the UK and are not capable of working this elementary statement out for ourselves.

Now I might run FOXY Lady Drivers Club, a life assistance motoring club for women, but that doesn’t mean I use my car any more than I absolutely have to, but sometimes I absolutely have to…

On New Year’s Eve, for example, I had some last minute envelopes to post after business so I walked to our local post box and arrived five minutes before the post should have been collected by Royal Mail. I then found that it had been collected early.  So I had to go home, get the car and drive to the nearest Post Office for a 6pm collection.

And last night our 16 year old son travelled by bus and train to our nearest town (c8m as the crow flies) to go to the cinema there with some friends. His return train was cancelled, he then missed the last bus and Dad had to get the car out to collect him.

With a non existent regular bus or train service in our rural situation, what should I have done in these two instances and many more like them? Perhaps I should have blamed the Royal Mail (fat chance) and failed to carry out my business promises to customers or told my son to risk walking home at midnight ‘to act on CO2′…

Last night on TV I caught one of the ActonCO2 ads on TV that told me motorists were the transport bad guys – this might have been featured many times before as I am not a regular ITV watcher. And in today’s Sunday Telegraph an ad accuses women drivers of driving five miles more than we need to. Of course it doesn’t say ‘this is for silly women drivers’ but which is the more likely gender to ‘collect kids’ ‘go to ‘Dry Cleaners’, ‘visit the Chemist’, ‘John’s house’ or ‘Grandma’ as their half page and again very expensive ad so helpfully maps out? That’s my point.

To me these journeys are the essence of what many community Mums do in their busy week, often fitting in part time work, emergency shopping, community good works and multiple children drop offs as well. We need our cars.

As you can see I am fed up with being told what I can or cannot do with my car that I already pay heavily to run. Like most other women drivers, I am not stupid, just a responsible motorist trying to manage a family budget that includes my car.

With the cost of motoring so high already, and on the up again thanks to the new rate of VAT for starters, I do not need anyone preaching at me, especially when it is they who are wasting OUR scarce financial resources to make motorists feel guilty when we have no choice but to drive in typical everyday lives.

Before we know it, everywhere will be like Brighton, the least friendly British city for motorists and one I avoid whenever I can for that very reason…

Please HM Government’s DfT do something constructive with OUR marketing money instead of preaching at us.

To fulfil your green agenda, why not promote FOXY Lady Drivers Club’s free car fitness checks including emissions?

Or explain to women drivers the safety, reliability and CO2 implications of having your car serviced regularly and by a garage that is good enough to do the job professionally and at a fair price.  So many cars have gone without servicing in 2009 for financial reasons…

At least this would be a positive message for a change and could do the motor industry some good as a consequence.

FOXY Steph

“I am only one but I am one. I cannot do everything but I can do something”.

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Winter car repairs with women in mind

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

It’s an ill wind that has been blowing car repairers good business this winter.  Snow and black ice last December has meant 40% more insurance claims from women drivers as well as men. But some motorists display a distinct lack of Christmas goodwill according to AA Insurance…

As if it isn’t bad enough for women drivers to have to abandon their car in snow or icy conditions, many motorists then find that their vehicles have been damaged by other cars sliding into them or that they have been broken in to by thieves.

“There’s no worse Christmas gift than finding someone has left a dent or scrape on your car and not left a note to admit it,” says Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance who then asks motorists to please leave a note with their contact details on the windscreen of the ‘innocent’ car.

But few will I suspect if the stories of folk who leave their cars running, unattended, whilst they warm up are anything to go by. Leaving the house to drive off, many find their car (usually a posh one) has been stolen off their front drive. Who are these dreadful people? I hope the penalties are tough when they are found out…

But this is a salutary message re women’s car insurance to the rest of us because insurers almost always reject these claims because theft of an unattended vehicle left open and with the keys in it is specifically excluded from policies.

As an aside, I’d remind any female motorist to consult her insurance policy in all cases before relying on insurers to carry out repairs for their car. In most cases you do not have to use the insurer’s repairers; you could use a female friendly variety and cherry pick one from FOXY Choice with the best qualifications and recommendations. This could be done more cheaply and quickly too – time is the factor that seems to cause many women drivers stress especially when any courtesy car facility is withdrawn before the car’s repair is complete. Outside the motorists reasonable control as well.

Happy New Year.

FOXY Steph

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Is it time for insurance brokers to fight back?

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has just published some best practice advice to act as guidance for insurance providers, brokers and insurance comparison websites who sell insurance products including car insurance for women drivers.

This guidance states that customers should be able to review key features of their selected policy before they commit to buy; should see what cover is provided as standard as well as which features are add-ons and be given clear information about excesses. In principle this should help women drivers do their insurance buying homework before committing to one car insurance provider but in reality if the likes of Aviva and Direct Line companies and insurance products are not using comparison websites surely those female motorists who buy their motor insurance online will be looking at a restricted audience, without necessarily appreciating this?

And if insurance providers are paying the likes of £40 per lead/sale to comparison websites perhaps it’s time to give High Street brokers like Cooperative, Swintons and NFU a fair chance to compete?

Maybe it’s just me but I sense a genuine appetite for a more female friendly customer service from the women drivers I speak to – perhaps the time is right for female friendly insurance brokers to sharpen up their marketing tactics here and give the comparison websites some serious competition based on keen prices, added value and superior customer service.

To find out more, read FOXY’s car insurance feedback for women drivers…

FOXY Steph

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