Money for Nothing

Insurance is a necessary evil and it would appear that if you risk not having it for something you need it and if you have it your paying for nothing. Last year I changed my car insurance company to M&S money, who have BISL as their administrators, as I was saving a reasonable amount, however this year my husband bought a second car, which is fine, it's nothing exiting just a run about to get to and from work. So I contact my insurance company ahead of time to ask about the procedure of insuring another car while he had not acquired any no-claims and was a named driver on my existing policy. I was told that is wasn't a problem and that my no-claims would be mirrored and he'd get a good saving. Great I think; wrong. Couple of months later husband buys car I call insurance company, go through loads of questions and they say, 'insurance will be £350' just as well I was already sitting on the floor. That was almost the same price as the car and double the insurance for my car. We talked about moving my no-claims to my husband but that just cost him £220 and me £400. CRAZY. There I am sitting on the floor going what the hell. Anyway, I tell them in no uncertain terms that we're not paying that. Hence I manage to get both our cars insured elsewhere for a total of £300; that's with my husband having no no-claims bonus of his own, amazing how one company can do this and another can't.

Although you can have two insurance policies on one car you can't claim on both so who would have two? I therefore called M&S Money back and told them I was cancelling the policy and why. The policy had until September to run so I knew that I would be losing something. After they told me that I’d have to pay £25 cancellation fee, then there was the loss of business expense of 90% of the remaining policy which would leave me with £2.43, WOW, enough to buy a fair-trade coffee. I say that it’s all ridiculous and told them to refund the amount, well it’s mine.

Few days later I’m checking my statement and there it is a debit for £2.43, they charged me. On the phone I get and then I’m told that they don’t refund anything under £10, first I knew, I pointed out that that didn’t give them the right to charge me and that they now needed to refund me £4.86; if I keep going I’ll get to that £10. Well I’m still waiting for the refund and the call back. They’ve got until Friday and if they haven’t they’ll be hearing from me.

Pedestrian vs Driver

As both a regular driver and pedestrian on Aberdeen’s streets I have a vested interest in the use, courtesy, general misuse and down right rudeness that comes from both. Firstly as a driver I find that far too many motorists think that the road is just for them and that traffic lights are there to inform them to drive faster to get through them. Then there is the fact that on certain roundabouts the give way to the right seems not to exist and that during traffic hour a stream of cars will actually park around the roundabout stopping the flow of traffic, this seems only to happen in Aberdeen, and just because no one wants another car to get in front of them and put them further back in the queue. Crazy when you consider that our traffic jams are not jams as the traffic has a reasonable flow. I wish I could say that the part-time traffic lights work but they at times just add to the rush to the next bit and that inch closer to that bumper. And why oh why is there confusion as to who has right away at a crossroad – for those who don’t know, it’s the driver going straight ahead then the one going left, that goes for crossroads that are not completely straight on – like the one on Ellon Road.

My biggest problem with drivers, is that many seem to ignore pedestrian crossings, I stop at a crossing if there is another car before me and there is not a clear space behind them for me not to sit on that crossing, after all there will be someone wanting to cross the road and I’d rather they didn’t walk around my car – more on this later.

Now life on the pavement can be dangerous, for all the reasons mentioned above, drivers seem to see pedestrians as targets as well as a nuisance, now granted there are people out there that while walking put themselves at risk by crossing the road between cars and before reaching or using pedestrian crossings or simply run out on the road to get across before a car comes. Such decisions baffle me. As a pedestrian I generally hate drivers, this comes from the fact that they don’t think about what they’re doing only that they have to get somewhere and are on autopilot most of the time and if I didn’t pay attention on those pavements and road crossings I’d be dead. I can’t count how many times I have stood patiently at a crossing, in the rain, only to have a car speed up to get through that light before it changes and that green man appears or that a car moves on to the crossing lane and blocks my path those seconds before the lights change. I may be wrong but I’m not going to walk around a car, bus – they are big criminals on this count – trucks etc. and risk someone moving off and hurting, maiming or killing me. I will however get extremely annoyed and rant at the offender and they know that they’ve done wrong, because they sit there looking straight ahead pretending that you’re not there and they’ve done nothing wrong.

I have to say that pedestrians really get a raw deal from motorists, not only do they have to put up with bad behaviour and discourtesy on the roads, but the weather is also against them with it; how many times have you seen a car drive faster in the rain and splash those rivers of water on Aberdeen’s roads just because they have to get somewhere, big news the pedestrian is going somewhere too and we’d like to get there in one piece.