Government proposals for new 20 mph zones are receiving mixed responses from officials says car insurance provider Swiftcover.
There has been talk of a new generation of speed cameras supporting these new zones, though a safety campaigner from Exeter was unsure as to whether the cameras were the best way forward. A 20 mph zone would be in area where there are going to be children it would be thought, so the placing of speed cameras would actually take drivers eyes away from the road and onto their speedometers, thus negating the point of the zone in the first place.
An alternative view was put forward by a county councillor who felt speed cameras would be better than traffic calming measures, feeling they would be more effective.
The view of Swinton, the biggest insurance broker on the high street, is that drivers with six points plus on their licence will soon be the norm, categorised as standard.
With the advent of the speed camera and the often scandalously low speeds at which they are set to trigger, Swinton feel it is not right to automatically penalise drivers because of these points. Bearing in mind the fact that approximately six million drivers have points on their licence, which is over ten percent of the whole population of the country, the approach from the insurer seems a very fair and sensible one.
Swinton are taking the view that the driver with six points on their licence today is as safe as the one who had three points five years ago and no points ten years ago. We just hope other insurers follow suit.
Admiral car insurance has warned car drivers that they could see their premiums 5 percent higher by the end of this year.
In the first half of the year insurance premiums have risen by around 2.5 percent according to data collated by Admiral, with a similar level of increase expected in the second half of the year. On the back of all the other price rises that are hitting consumers there appears to be no escape from rising costs.
What seems to be happening is that the cost of car insurance is going up even though the number of claims is relatively unchanged. Admiral suggest that it may be the increasing cost of repairs that is forcing premiums up.
