Insurance scandal
Regarding your report on insurance premiums (“Over-45s look nervously over their shoulder after women’s premiums rise”, News, last week): come on, let’s get tough! We all know that any form of insurance has always been calculated against a quantifiable risk: car, home, pet, mortgage, commerce, industry, whatever. Factors influence risk and dictate what we, as insured user groups, are asked to pay.
This need to realign car premiums using sex (for fear of discrimination) — and, let’s face it, it will include age and ability too — is and will be no more than finding yet another way of extracting our hard-earned cash from our beat-up, wearying pocket and then attempting to hide behind the courts and a very weak justification.
Next up, OAPs losing their bus passes because they can’t be allowed preferential treatment.
Michael Copeland, Aberdeen
V8 Vantage: the harsh tooth
In his review of the new Jaguar XJ (“Damn it, Spock, we can’t shake off Arthur Daley” last week), Jeremy Clarkson states that “a hard ride is the only reason I don’t own an XKR”. He obviously has not been down to the shops in Mrs Clarkson’s Aston Martin V8 Vantage. Mine has shaken all the fillings out of my teeth.
Dr Martin Henry (dentist), Chelmsford, Essex
Tar for nothing
Potholes are a problem but in most cases filling them is not the answer (“Weld champion”, Letters, last week). If the road is falling apart, it needs resurfacing. Throwing a bit of tar in a crumbling road surface is a waste of resources.
Bob Clay, Kettering, Northamptonshire
Licensed to park
It is a bit late to take effective action but, unless something is done soon, our streets will become one big gridlock. In our area, there are so many cars and vans parked on both sides of narrow streets that were never designed to accommodate parking, that two-way traffic is impossible. There is no room at all for emergency vehicles.
One possible, if drastic, solution would be for new car owners to prove that they have off-road parking before they are issued with road tax.
Mike O’Regan, via email
Officer class
Sam Banik of Muswell Hill wrote on the Morris Oxford ancestry of the Ambassador (“Car stereotypes”, Letters, last week). I note that in India the Ambassador is still in use as a military staff car, highly polished and emblazoned with star plates and the appropriate pennant on the bonnet.
Why, one may ask, do our own military nabobs no longer appear at functions in Humber Super Snipes or, for the lower ranks, in Standard Vanguards?
Patrick Thomas, Stockbridge, Hampshire
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Rubber protection
In Car Clinic last week, InGear reviewed cleaning agents for alloy wheels. Demon Tweeks used to sell what can only be described as large rubber dinner plates that fitted behind the wheel to protect from brake dust. It has stopped selling these now.
I used them on a big, heavy, old Beemer with no problems and wonder if your readers know of anywhere that still sells them.
Mark Couchman, Didcot, Oxfordshire
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