In a somewhat surprising comment Yes Insurance have asked for fire engines to be yellow rather than the traditional red.
The request comes following the insurers research in to vehicle colours and how safe they are, research that supplements other studies already carried out. Yes Insurance found that lime yellow is one of the safest colours on the road thanks to its high visibility both at night and day plus in poor weather, when it cuts through poor visibility better than any other.
A further reason Yes Insurance asked for the red paint to be swapped on fire engines for yellow was that red can often be perceived as black when it is dark, plus red is quite hard to see from drivers peripheral vision. These two issues are quite serious for an emergency vehicle that is often out when it is dark and also tries to get through traffic from all angles.
Research from AA Insurance has found that around 22 percent of people in the UK are intending to take a holiday in Britain this year in order to cut down their costs of travel.
It appears that the rising costs in all aspects of travel are making people think about alternatives to try and reduce their expenditure. This has also driven more people to look at smaller vehicles to save money that way. There can also be insurance benefits in this, as well as better fuel economy said an AA Insurance representative.
As with all things the key is to find something that is suitable, so making sure there is enough room for people, that the engine can deliver the performance needed for regular long journeys and so on. AA Insurance see claims for all sorts of issues relating to unsuitable vehicles, so ensuring it is fit for the job it will have to do is paramount.
The largest insurer in the UK, Norwich Union, has suspended what had been described as a ground breaking form of car insurance that used a black box to track every journey.
The idea was to set premiums based on the risks faced by drivers. This would mean that drivers avoiding rush hour or late night driving would pay less for their car insurance. Norwich Union cited a slow take up of the idea and too few customers as the key factors for withdrawing the car insurance scheme.
There has also been a certain amount of mistrust from drivers regarding the black box. Having every journey monitored is not what Britain is about and there could be situations where a drivers Norwich Union car insurance policy could be negated if a vehicle was seen to be speeding at any time, or even have the data passed to the police. All in all most people feel the withdrawal of the black box idea is a good result and hope that it will not see the light of day again.
