The River drivers talk about car insurance and the difference between sexes.
Eve Carson’s view:
Higher insurance was not what I hoped to spend my money on this Christmas. Why should we ladies cover the extra cost for the history of errors made by male drivers?
Young women are going to be hit the hardest by the increase in insurance costs, as if we weren’t strapped for cash as it is.
I put off learning to drive for a number of years because the cost of running a car, an old banger in my case, was extortionate.
I only recently managed to balance my finances to fund the hunk of junk that gets me to university and back. But now the price of insurance is going to be on a par with men’s insurance policies, I may as well hang up my keys.
Statistics show that women are more careful drivers than men, especially when starting out. So why punish us and put our insurance up? We are paying the price for the reckless driving of boy racers.
Of course not all guys are dangerous drivers and not all girls are great.
I admit I probably drive too slowly sometimes and honk my horn round one too many bends, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.
It’s just ridiculous the speed at which some men race through a residential street with the wheel in one hand and a mobile phone in the other.
Young male drivers have paid more for insurance for a reason. On average they are more hazardous when on the road. It’s just a fact.
However, insurers aren’t going to lower men’s price plans to meet those of women, so the only option to make it ‘fair’ is to put ours up.
Men don’t lose out, but women do. We would not be in this predicament if male drivers had a history of safe driving.
From the New Year I will have to pay the higher premium or I go back to glorious public transport.
Guess I better wrap up warm and meet you at the bus stop.
Ollie Gillman’s view
Sexism by car insurance companies has finally been sorted out by the European Union, and thank goodness.
It’s despicable that insurers have got away with charging young men nearly 50 per cent more than women for a year’s cover, so I for one cannot wait for the rise to come into force later this month.
According to the AA, men aged 17-22, your average student, pay £3,000 for a year’s insurance. This is £875 more than a typical woman of that age group.
I, like most guys out there, am a careful driver. I’ve never had an accident. I don’t speed. I don’t use my phone while driving. I would never ever drink and drive.
My Nissan Micra’s so run down that I don’t even have a radio to distract me from the roads. It’s taken such a battering over the years that the cassette player conked out before I turned 17.
So to label me as a boy racer is incredibly unfair. And to say I’m more dangerous than some drunk girl texting while driving is downright offensive.
Yes, men crash more than women. But if a study showed that different ethnicities were more likely to have an accident than others, would we just sit idly by and let Sheila’s Wheels, or any insurance company, charge them more?
No. Because discrimination, whether it’s based on race or gender, is, or at least should’ve been, a thing of the past.
Companies should meet halfway on both genders’ insurance, rather than cashing in on an EU ruling designed to help young men who pay too much.
Men have been paying astronomical insurance fees for years, so maybe its about time women started sharing the burden, rather than safe-driving men taking all the flak for boy racers.
I’ve had to work hard and save up to pay for my car insurance, so I don’t see why women are a special exception.
So women, unless you want to hitch a lift with a bloke, pay up.