Insurance and the Boy Racer

Boy Racers have hit the news again with the usual cries of what is the government going to do about it. As usual they have an idea and have appointed a fall guy, in this case Harry Duynhoven, to deliver it to the bleating sheep that politicians often mistake for the New Zealand voter.

The idea:

Compulsory Third Party Insurance.

Cue flash of de ja vue.

Now, on its own, this isn't such a bad idea. Every car owner should have some sort of insurance and if they did possibly the cost of insurance would decrease. Part of the conditions of getting insurance would be that the car is registered and has a current warrant of fitness so fewer complete bombs on the road. The insurance companies would be grinning all the way to the bank but any driver would be safe to sneeze in a queue of traffic with out being faced with a big bill should his/her car jerk into the back of a BMW in the process. It may even remove a few elderly cars from the road and force more of the perpetually broke on to public transport.

But as usual there is a catch. Aside from the cost to the 20 - 30% of car owners who don't have insurance that is.

The effect on Boy Racer problem will be:

Zip!
Nothing!
No effect at all.
If you are looking for a way to teach Boy Racers that doughnuts are better fried, cooled and served with jam and whipped cream rather than burned on the road with diesel and a rubber tyre spinning at high speed you will have to think of something else.


The very term Boy Racer implies speed. Does insurance or lack of it slow them down?
No!

Then there is the issue of the way cool modifications.

I know a Warrant Of Fitness guy so I bailed him up by sitting on his nice warm car bonnet and had a chat. A very effective technique for getting someone to talk to you if you have clean feet.

He sees a lot of boy and girl racers and their cars. Apparently not all boy racer type modifications are illegal. There is some great info about that here.

The police can green and pink sticker cars until the cows come home but if it meets the LTSA Warrant Of Fitness requirements the WOF guy will remove the sticker. The fact that a truck can be driven through some of the holes in those regs isn't the WOF guys problem. However I dare say a number of Boy Racers will get seriously pissed off if the police keep sending them back for unnecessary WOF checks. A WOF check isn't free after all.

What about all those unwarranted, illegally modified cars driven by boy racers. Will the lack of insurance get them off the road?
I am sure the police will back me up when I state that not even a flying pig can achieve that let alone an insurance policy.

Compulsory insurance won't even solve the mystery ding problem. You know the ones that appear when parked at the local shopping mall with no sign of the culprit or his/her insurance details.

To give Harry Duynhoven his due he did sound like he knew what he was talking about when interviewed on Campbell Live. Right up until he used an example of one of his own cars to state the cost of third party insurance.

$78

I had my secretary check this. She started laughing.

A word to the wise Harry. The cost of insuring your old car with its old grey haired driver in New Plymouth is very different to a solo mum insuring the same vehicle in Auckland. Especially if anyone under 25 comes within cooee of the drivers seat.


The idea that compulsery insurance will stop Boy Racers breaking the law is about as effective microchipping dogs to stop them biting.