Boy racers in the UK
28/05/2008

scourge of British road society. and cheap car insurance

They are a strange breed - I resent seeing my cheap car insurance rise because of them. Whenever the weather is dry or hots up a fraction, they appear as quickly as maggots in a rotting carcass, or for a more digestible analogy - like small furry animals emerging from hibernation, although for the term 'animals', I prefer to replace it with 'vermin'.

Yes - with the advent of dry, longer and warmer days, they appear like some kind of plague of biblical proportions. Worrying thing is though, just like the divinely-led angel of death visiting the Egyptians in those ancient times, this plague of unwanted creatures can bring death and destruction in their wake.

I'm referring, of course, to the 'boy racer'. I sometimes wonder if there's any worse affliction in this country, although those people who carry - and use - knives, guns and other weapons on UK streets probably do deserve to make it into first place. They truly are the scourge of British roads.

Make no mistake though, the boy racer is a major threat and danger to the motoring public's mostly innocent existence on the road - if we didn't know already.

No less a person than the British former Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped into this country's battle with boy racers last year, focusing attention on young drivers who use stolen or uninsured cars.

He highlighted that numbers of young drivers and their young passengers being killed were rising while other road accident injuries had been cut.

Sometimes boy racers aren't quite as they seem. Searching the Internet for stories about this obnoxious breed, I uncovered a remarkable story about a 12-year-old lad who had been in a racing car accident when his head was detached internally.

He was racing around a track in Alton, Hampshire, when his skull lifted off the top of his spine during the smash. It took about 90 minutes to cut him free and after an amazing recovery, he said he was fine and wanted to race again.

But, of course, he isn't the kind of boy racer that is causing law-abiding, careful motorists any problems. That said, the accidents these 'thugs of the road' cause can be just as serious.

Is there anyone out there who can't picture the boy racer I'm talking about? Souped-up looking car - or maybe it just sounds souped up - music player pumping out for the whole world to hear, and usually with some kind of Carlos Fandango wheels or body kit add-ons of some kind.

Sometimes admittedly there's the more undercover version. He drives a powerful car that almost looks like a normal car. But their urban camouflage lasts about as long as the next roundabout. We can recognise them by their driving style - super fast and always cutting up other drivers.

It was notable to reflect on recent research that statistically showed young drivers who play computer racing games always drove faster after sessions on their Playstations and Xboxes .

Match that with the numbers of young people who drive the type of cars I was referring to and there you may have a recipe for road accident disaster.

Currently, the government is consulting about driving test reforms, making it much tougher with more driving hours required before learner drivers can pass their tests.

This comes after studies showed that young drivers were 12 times more likely to be to blame than older drivers. That's a dramatically high figure, demonstrating why the mad driving by boy racers that we highlighted earlier is too serious to simply ignore.

The all-too-common result of poor driving technique combined with the modified car often synonymous with boy racers is, unfortunately, to drive up the cost of cheap car insurance for young drivers - sometimes penalising those young people who drive more carefully.

Young drivers who want to stay accident-free and keep down their car costs would do well to select smaller, less powerful cars, follow speed limits and generally take care while driving. Not least, there can't be many young people out there who want the social stigma of being a boy racer 'maggot' in our society. are there?

Digg!

 

 

 

More Cheap Car Insurance News

Fifty crashes a day for young drivers
Young driver ban plea
Police scheme bid to cut young driver deaths
Car insurance for young drivers and road skills
News Car insurance linked to 'Stone Age'
Rural road risks for young drivers
Young drivers head for Eden
Car costs running motorists off the road
Takeaway trip leads to learner ban
Chavs help women with cheap car insurance
AA advice for lowering premiums
AA warn drivers to check their car insurance.
Car insurance premiums kept artificially low by stiff competition
Young drivers are the biggest risk takers
Man fakes death to avoid speeding fines
Young drivers film dangerous driving
Insurers turn away 17-year-olds
Speed camera installed unlawfully
Jan 18th worse day for accidents
Police launch crackdown on dangerous drivers
Drink driver asks police officer for the time
Driver buries himself to avoid police capture
Speeding fines down in West Yorkshire
Norwich Union advises customers to shop online
Young drivers at twice the speed limit
Pensioner parks on neighbour's car
New Year drink driving down in 2008
Car insurance traps student in Wales
Banned boxer charged with speeding
Teenagers chop down speed camera with axe

Car Insurance News Archive