As the roads in the United Kingdom become ever more congested, it is inevitable that road users will have collisions with each. Cars are becoming safer and better designed and new roads are also designed with safety in mind, with better junction layouts and signposting and illumination. Speed cameras are being erected at accident black spots to limit speeding. Despite all this, the number of motor accident compensation claims seems to keep on growing. Why? It may well be that these advances in safety and technology have in themselves contributed to the problem. Drivers tend to feel so much safer in their cars now, are more able to accelerate quickly as performance levels in cars improve, and more confident of being able to stop quickly so perhaps caution levels are reduced.
Congestion tends to increase feeling of impatience so that drivers will then be more likely to drive impetuously. Cars are littered with distractions such as telephones, music systems, navigation systems and these all tend to lead the driver’s eyes away from the road. Speed cameras have been shown to reduce accidents at the controlled sites, but to transfer the problem to new sites instead where more drivers feel that it is appropriate to speed as there will be no sanction for doing so.
The insurance industry is aware that accident numbers rise alongside the number of vehicles on the road and then they in turn will be gathering more revenue in premiums in order to cover the cost of those claims. Their concern is to keep the unit cost of those claims under control hence they work closely with car designers to look at ways of making car repairs cheaper and quicker. They also set up close arrangements with repairers to achieve significant savings on labour costs for damage to vehicle. They are also becoming increasingly proactive in terms of intercepting claims against an at fault driver where an injury has been suffered, offering treatment and rehabilitation which they will fund because they recognise that in the long run this will serve to limit the severity of an injury and associated claims such as loss of earnings. Again, this is designed to keep payments per claim carefully controlled and prevent the cost of motor accident compensation claims from exceeding what they are able to recover by way of premiums.
As a society we must recognise that we need insurers to act in this way to control costs if we want motor premiums to stay at an affordable level. The other way to prevent rise sin premiums is for drivers to take responsibility for their actions, to drive patiently and safely, and to bring down the number of accidents happening on the roads.
