Why are people against CCTV and speed cameras on the roads?

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srw

It's a bit more complicated than that...
they have this on some roads - including the M25
Not noticeably. Don't ask me how I know...
 

GrumpyGregry

Here for rides.
this hoary old chestnut came up over dinner on friday night. apparently they are putting up stealth speed limit signs on A roads in south surrey.

what a load of cobblers.
 

GrumpyGregry

Here for rides.
Thjere's apparently a hidden speed camera in the next parish to mine.

Everyone's saying how simply marvellous it is, but I can't see it myself.
A local village got blanket 20mph against the limit.

chairperson of the organising committee was the first one to get a ticket.
 

colly

Re member eR
Location
Leeds
... and just imagine how much it would be without the subsidy!

In 2010 almost £ 2 Billion more was spent by the insurance companies on motor related claims than was gained in policy fees!

Motor insurance is propped up by income from household and personal insurance

I have heard this before, mainly from spokespeople of the insurance industry. If it really is the case that motor insurance is a loss maker why are they queuing up to sell me insurance policies on which they are losing money? They can not ALL be so desperate to go out of business.

It sounds like a sob story to justify exorbitant premiums. Further to that we are told that the premium is based on the actuaries calculation of risk based on previous experience. Really? If that were the case then pretty much all premiums for similar risks would all be within a spit of one another. We all know they vary by a massive margin.

As for speed cameras? I'm all for them, even if they are just revenue raising. I'm all for people volunteering to pay more tax. :thumbsup: I've done it myself.:whistle:



I think Slowmotion had it about right.
 

srw

It's a bit more complicated than that...
I have heard this before, mainly from spokespeople of the insurance industry. If it really is the case that motor insurance is a loss maker why are they queuing up to sell me insurance policies on which they are losing money? They can not ALL be so desperate to go out of business.

It sounds like a sob story to justify exorbitant premiums. Further to that we are told that the premium is based on the actuaries calculation of risk based on previous experience. Really? If that were the case then pretty much all premiums for similar risks would all be within a spit of one another. We all know they vary by a massive margin.
The 2011 results are just out. The UK motor insurance market lost about £600m. Those figures came from a firm of consultants, using data which is available to anyone who cares to pay (surprisingly little) for it. Any hardness in rates in 2010 and 2011 is now vanishing.

As Cunobelin points out, they're surviving by cross-subsidy from other classes. No-one wants to withdraw from private motor (a) because it's a flagship product, (b) because it's filthily difficult to tell what the actual rate should be, alarmingly easy to get it wrong and absurdly easy to kid yourself that you're making money when you're losing money and (c) because the advent of aggregators means that the game has changed and no-one really understands it at the moment - and it's easy to assume that you do.

Based on the inflation of claims (something like 8% to 10% a year for third-party, based solely on court judgements and out-of-court settlements, and 3% a year for own damage, based on what motor manufacturers and garages can get away with charging), motor rates ought to be going up by 6% or so a year. Instead, for much of the last decade, they've been static.

As for your comment about variability in premiums - if an actuarial team had data from the entire motor market in the USA to deal with, and only 5 or 6 rating factors, then they could get a very accurate rate. Instead, no-one's got more than about 10% of UK data, and they're working with over 20 rating factors. In those circumstances it's amazing that anyone is able to make money.
 
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