cars and insurance!!

What to rant about first?

My car. It was not a great car. While it was incredibly economical to drive and the interior was perhaps the largest of any small car if have ever been it – it was rather uncomfortable to drive for any distance. The seat made my bum go numb. But as I don’t drive very far very often, the uncomfortableness was not a n overwhelming problem. It was not a great car but it was mine. I had no intention of looking at a newer car any time soon.

Last week on the way to work, a young student lost control of her vehicle, crossed over into my lane and smashed into me. Both of my airbags (and hers) went off. Neither car was going very fast and so no one was injured. Fire truck, ambulance, two police cars and the campus security all arrived fairly quickly. Even the sander came within ten minutes of the accident. While clearly the young student is responsible for the accident as her car hit mine in my lane, there was nothing that she could have done. The road was very icy; they tried to turn but the car just continued in a straight line. The college should have sanded the road before students and staff started to arrive. They didn’t and now I don’t have a car.

However my frustration is not with the college (although I do have dreams of suing them), it is with the insurance and car companies. Air bags are now required on all vehicles. They probably save lives. In my case all they did was give me a bruised rib cage that still, a week later, is sore. However I am willing to accept that if we both had been going faster, the air bags could have prevented serious injuries. But if we have to have air bags, why does it mean that when they explode we throw away the car? It appears to be an almost universal truth that if an airbag goes off, the car is written off by the insurance company. They are just too expensive to fix. How absurd!!! 

Those of us who are conscious of the environment and the need to stop raping the planet do everything we can to reduce the size of our footprints upon Mother Earth. We worry about recycling juice cans, wine bottles and tiny bits of plastic; we buy small cars that use as little gas as possible, we carry around our brightly coloured reusable shopping bags so that we don’t need to use plastic ones and we write on both sides of our paper and use toilet paper that comes from recycled products so we don’t kill any more trees than we have to. But when an accident occurs, in spite of our concerns all of that good work goes to waste in a split second when there is a car accident.

My car was damaged. But it was not so damaged that the tow truck driver couldn’t start it up and drive it to more convenient (and safer) location fifty yards down the road to hook it up to the tow truck. Yes it needed significant work done to repair the bumper, hood and both front fenders. but mechanically it was fine – it was repairable. It just, according to the insurance company, would cost too much to repair.

I somehow suspect that the insurance company does not have to calculate the cost to the environment of writing off a car. I know that people will argue that all parts of the car are recycled…… but you will forgive me if I remain somewhat cynical about that.

Car safety is important – but can’t we design and air bag that is cheaper to replace?