Speeding Ticket Misery

As we've noted before, it's becoming easier and easier for motorists to be caught speeding, although some drivers are successfully overturning unfair convictions.

But as the Mail on Sunday reported, the cost of the fine is the least of a driver's worries, as their insurance premiums could rocket, in some cases by as much as 60% or hundreds of pounds.

To illustrate this they published the table below, showing the rates that the AA's panel quoted on an example.



It's not very often that a rival insurance broker will publish a whole range of sample quotes like that, so I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to compare our rates with a major competitor. As you can see, their cheapest rate for a 44 year old man from Gloucestershire with a 2.0i Ford Mondeo Ghia, maximum no claims and 2 SP30 speeding convictions comes in at £404.

So I got quotes guru Dan Clark (who you can now find posting on a ever growing list of forums, btw), to run the same details through our underwriting criteria.

Our rate came in at £315.

That's a whole £89 cheaper - 22% less - than the best quote the AA could offer. And cheaper than all but one of the quotes listed for the same chap with a clean license (and even that is only £19 difference).

And in case you think we cheated by raising the excess, we didn't - the policy excess is just £100, low by any standards.

So the message for drivers who've experienced the dreaded double flash from a GATSO is clear, make sure you call us (08000 83 88 33) at renewal time, or you could find yourself paying well over the odds for convicted driver insurance.

Ace, smart - it's our 100th post!

Hurrah! It's our 100th post since we started the blog in April. That's 86 more posts than confused.com have managed on their aptly named "Confused Blog" since October 05.

Meanwhile, fans of the smart Roadster, which DaimlerChrysler have pulled the plug on, got some good news from a group called Project Kimber. They seem to be well on the way to securing the rights to build restyled roadsters and coupes based on the smart, having now arranged with smart which of their tooling machines they would like to buy.

And they've released the first artwork showing what their new car, which they're selling as an AC Ace (and here's the original AC Ace, will look like. More here and here.

smart fans might also be interested in the smart squidoo we've slung together. Do suggest anything to make it better if you have any ideas.

New HIC Site

You've probably noticed that postings have not been so prolific in the last couple of weeks.

We've been working on quite a few things here including the relaunch of the HIC website - www.hertsinsurance.com



The previous version was an unwieldy flash app. The new site is crisp, clean and much easier to navigate, as well as loading much more quickly. You can also get a quote and buy online.

A whole raft of other things are in the pipeline too - Bikesure will be getting an online quote facility early in the new year, and our car quotes are moving to a new computer system.

You may also have noticed some changes to the Adrian Flux website - www.adrianflux.co.uk - we're trying to make the user experience as excellent as possible. If you can think of anything we've missed, drop me a line.

Easier Parking

This is one way to make parking easier.



This is obviously a US car, but we reckon we could cover a similar mod in the UK.

Parking Rage

You've waited patiently for your parking spot and then some muppet nicks it. Are you just going to take it? Well, yes, is probably the answer most of us would give.

But for some people don't just sit there and seethe.

Oh, no.

They destroy their transmission doing this!

Bond vs Borat

The cheeky chaps at Virgin put out a press release claiming that James Bond's car insurance would come in at around £7,000 for the year.

We reckon we could cover Bond, no problem, and at only £3,750, which is a snip when you consider his driving record and that his Aston DBS costs around £170,000.

Someone like Borat, the Kazakh TV presenter, presents much more of an underwriting challenge, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll pay more - you can find out how much Borat would pay below, where I've reproduced our own press release on the subject.

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When a mainstream insurance broker put out a story last week about how much it would cost to insure James Bond's cars, the specialists at Adrian Flux Insurance chuckled.

“Never mind all the media hype about a slick fashion clothes horse like Bond,” said Gerry Bucke of Adrian Flux. “What about the real challenge - insuring Borat, the world’s most famous 'Kazakh'?"

A wealthy civil servant on an unlimited budget - such as Bond - is a piece of cake to insure, argues Bucke, a specialist in 'insuring the uninsurable'.

Bond drives expensive supercars. Borat has a bodged-up old ice cream van of dubious origins with a bear in the back.

You’d think that ejector seats and missiles would put a rocket under Bond’s premium. But what about Borat's beat-up bearmobile?

Then, what about the No Claims Bonus? Bond’s been crash-free since 2002 (when Die Another Day was released), so that’s four years' worth to set against his admittedly patchy accident record. Borat’s only just passed his test, so he’s got no experience whatsoever.

Flux claims to insure any car and any driver: “We’ve got policies for modified cars and for high performance ones, so Bond would be no problem,” says Gerry. "Borat’s more unusual. We do cover ice cream vans, but he might be better off going for a grey import policy, or maybe a kit car scheme. Whatever, we should be able to sort something out.”

And they did. So who came out best?

“For Bond’s Aston Martin DBS, we reckon about £3,750. For Borat, around £900 should do it."

So Borat wins hands down in the costs stakes. "But only if the bear is a pet", says Gerry Bucke. Flux would also add Azmat, Borat's porky sidekick TV producer, to the policy for free.

Adrian Flux has a huge range of policies for the motoring enthusiast. For details contact the Adrian Flux quote line on 08000 83 88 33, email the company at quotes@adrianflux.co.uk, or see the Flux homepage on www.adrianflux.co.uk