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Motorists caught using a mobile phone at the wheel face a 30 per cent hike in insurance premiums, according to one insurance firm.
Allianz Insurance has decided to treat prosecution for the offence in the same way as a conviction for dangerous driving. Getting caught using your phone without a hands-free kit while driving currently leads to a premium increase in-line with a speeding fine.
Allianz hopes other insurers will follow its lead. Neil Walker, the firm’s motor manager, said, "Incre...Read the full article

This might just be the move that actually inhibits the use of mobiles at the wheel. Fear of a 30% insurance hike is greater than three points and a small fine. Also, add the lot together and it might even pay to more police on the roads instead of just cameras.

Good news. I'm amazed at the number of drivers that I see on the roads still using mobile phones as they drive around, despite all the publicity. Its horrifying to see Mums with kids in the car chatting away with just one hand on the steering wheel or the van driver I recently saw with one hand holding his mobile phone to an ear and the other holding a sandwich to his mouth as he approached a busy roundabout, I shudder to think what he was steadying the steering wheel with !!

ordinary bloke:

or the van driver I recently saw with one hand holding his mobile phone to an ear and the other holding a sandwich to his mouth as he approached a busy roundabout, I shudder to think what he was steadying the steering wheel with !!

 

hahahaha, an invisible arm maybe? his knees? frightening

Looks like another 'ruse' of the many the insurance industry uses to bump up premiums. Certainly mobile phones increase the 'risk' of an accident as my own use has twice led to a 'near miss' (but no accident) over the last 6-7 years.

The reality is accident rates are paltry - 3 per 1 million kilometers. What percentage of this accident rate (which haven't changed since the mobile ban) are due to mobiles is anyones guess! As expressed above there are 'concerns' about sarni eating mobile phone drivers but a risk (fear) is not the same as a reality (accident).

I can ski down a red run while smoking a ciggy and conversing on the mobile avoiding errant kids, ice patches and slamming into the Hoftmeister Inn. Humans are amazingly able to gauge and avoid risks.

The minute accident rates certainly show you need to get your electron microscopes out to find the storm in the tea cup and good reason to curb human behaviour or freedoms on mobiles. 

It doesn't matter if the accident rate is 1 per 100 miles or 1 per a billion miles, the issue they are addressing here is the proportional change in risk due to a given activity. That's just throwing statistics around.

I imagine the real issue here is that this particular insurer is finding it hard to classify the risk from someone caught using a mobile phone, so they simply don't want their business.  Pricing them out is simply the best way of making sure they go elsewhere or, if they do stay, give them a sufficiently increased premium to cover themselves. Most UK car insurers make little or no profit (in most cases their profits are a matter of public record), so they will do anything they can to protect themselves from risk, even if it means turning away business.

I doubt this will become standard practice unless a more accurate statistical risk assesment is made on mobile phone use by insurers.

Ah so it's not the 'outcome' that's important, it's the 'proportional' increase in risk. Like a circle that goes round in circles, of itself, not the meaningful, factual outcome!

This Insurer is hiking premiums on the basis you've already had an accident, 'caused' by using a mobile phone while driving. Have they proven that once you make this mistake you're hell bent on repeating an accident, which is what the Insurance hike suggests?

Raising the premium after an accident points toward either 'we need you to pay us back fo the accident' or 'you are an increased risk' to have another accident doesn't it? The latter is unsubstantiated human behaviour and I'd like to see their 'research' on that!

JJ - you never answered me this before, where are you getting your accident stats from?

For the UK, the death rate per 1 billion vehicle kilometers is 2.0 on motorways and 9.3 on all other roads. Where does your figure come from, and what do you mean by 'accident rate'?

How is this any different to speeding convictions? If I got a ticket, I think I'd almost certainly be less likely to get another one, yet my insurance would go up. Are you just questioning the way insurance companies work (i.e. fleece the customer for everything they're worth)?
 

Niall - thanks for figures and the correction - it is per Billion (100,000,000km/miles) and not per 'Million' as I stated. I started quoting 'per Million' about 3wks ago 'from memory' as I was too lazy to find the data again! My earlier posts quote per Billion miles or kilometers when I was actively using the sites.

My sources are the Association of British Drivers (ABD), data from road engineer/expert J.J. Leeming and the UK governments own figures when I read up about the Govts speed limit review that took place a few years ago. Plus Germanys ADAC and Americas National Motorists Association.

ABD - good data and material to read here:  http://www.abd.org.uk/  

The American data is in miles (not km's)  http://tinyurl.com/574rc9

There's a difference between number of accidents (either property/vehicle damage and personal injuries) and the number of deaths. For example death rates hav increased on UK roads since speed cameras were introduced whereas personal injuries have declined over the same time.

Whether your Insurance Co increases your premium after a mobile phone accident (I don't know how they would establish this as most motorists would lie!) or after a speeding ticket my point is the same. The hike is totally unneccessary - just commercial opportunism. As the risk is both minimal or lessened that you will repeat the behaviour or that you will have another accident.

JJBoxster:

Niall - thanks for figures and the correction - it is per Billion (100,000,000km/miles) and not per 'Million' as I stated. I started quoting 'per Million' about 3wks ago 'from memory' as I was too lazy to find the data again! My earlier posts quote per Billion miles or kilometers when I was actively using the sites.

My sources are the Association of British Drivers (ABD), data from road engineer/expert J.J. Leeming and the UK governments own figures when I read up about the Govts speed limit review that took place a few years ago. Plus Germanys ADAC and Americas National Motorists Association.

ABD - good data and material to read here:  http://www.abd.org.uk/  

The American data is in miles (not km's)  http://tinyurl.com/574rc9

There's a difference between number of accidents (either property/vehicle damage and personal injuries) and the number of deaths. For example death rates hav increased on UK roads since speed cameras were introduced whereas personal injuries have declined over the same time.

Whether your Insurance Co increases your premium after a mobile phone accident (I don't know how they would establish this as most motorists would lie!) or after a speeding ticket my point is the same. The hike is totally unneccessary - just commercial opportunism. As the risk is both minimal or lessened that you will repeat the behaviour or that you will have another accident.

Idiot.

Dangerous driving, using mobile phones are now practically all legal because traffic police have been replaced by speed cameras so nobody can enforce these laws.

scook2003:

Dangerous driving, using mobile phones are now practically all legal because traffic police have been replaced by speed cameras so nobody can enforce these laws.

 

Another idiot to join the clucking chorus. It's not legal - it's illegal.

It's also dangerous.