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OK, I'm gonna kick off the posting here. So, I just sent off my application for a provisional liscence to the DVLA. Which should arrive in one week, and here are my current fears:

First, I have to pay £38 just to get my photograph on a laminated piece of card - which is fair enough, people have to be paid.

Next comes the driving lessons. Now, driving instructing is a business, businesses need money. I was told I will need at least 20 lessons to pass a driving practical exam. Driving lessons used to be dirt cheap - my mother paid £7 for hers, I'm expected to pay over double that, at least £15 a lesson. So, 20 x £15 = £300. That's £338 before I even sit any exams.

So, I told my future driving instructor to teach me the bare minimum, and I will practice in my mother's car (she's letting me biggrin ), which will save me some money on lessons - I can now probably pass on 10.

Moving on, once I pass my driving test, I now need a car. The cheapest cars I see are roughly a grand. Then comes the government's first little trick: Insurance. You see, it is a legal requirement to have insurance for a vehicle, but the government lets the big fat cat companies choose whatever prices they are. A legal liscence to print money. There are no government guidelines on prices. So if an insurers want to charge me £3k a year insurance, it's the put-up an shut-up situation. What I do not agree with is the way in which quotes are devised. So, I may be a 17 year old male, and I may buy a Citroen Saxo because it's a cheap car. It DOES NOT mean I'm going to customise the car and go street-racing, (like quite a few 17 year old males do with Citroen Saxos). I would choose a car like this because of its price. But the insurance companies will assume that I'm going to be a boy racer, and charge me extraordinarily high prices.

How can you make this fair? I would propose allowing the insurance companies access to your test results (like you have to provide proof of qualification at a job interview), so they can lookat your results and say: "hey, he got a high mark, maybe he won't be a boy racer".

And moving on again, I'm not even going to talk about the increasing petrol charges - when BP make £1 million profit every minute. What I am going to talk about is the government's proposed green tax, where the larger and less environmentally friendly vehicles will be slammed with extra tax. Now, the government propose different bands of classification. Completely electric cars will be free of this tax, whereas the more environmentally friendly petrol cars such as the Honda Civic (Band B - Second highest rank), will have to pay £300 instead of the £40 road tax at the minute. Now, maybe a teenager can't afford the low-emission cars, and will buy and old high-emission car because they are cheaper - the road tax will go sky-high, and Mr. Gordon Brown is going to get an extra £1 billion a year from this.

(Source, BBC News)

Now, the Government should open their eyes and realise that they are acting like a business with an obsession for profit. Maybe if they sort out departments such as the Home Office and the CSA (the CSA are most definitely the most useless department I have ever seen - they promised my 2 years ago they would force my father to pay maintenance. 2 years later, he owes £4k, and look, he hasnt paid a penny), they could actually free up some money and not have to tax us so heavily.

Mr Brown, this obviously hasn't been thoguht through. Unless you are planning to drive all 17 year olds off the road without upping the minimum driving age, recieveing negative press.

--Thigns to discuss--
The true cost of driving
The Government's obsession with profit through tax
Crazy, over-the-top tax increases for more environmentally friendly - including justification for increase band B tax from £40 to £300
Am I sane

I could really do with having free driving lessons at school, they don't offer it in the UK, you have to go to a private company. At least the American insurance companies use some kind of qualifications to distinguish between people. I might have a word at school when I get back, but they normally just give you the phone numbers of local instructors.

But if people do good on the driving test, that should be reflected in their insurance deal.

We have a theory test - 35 questions, 30+ to pass. Then there's a hazard perception test, where you watch a video and attempt to spot the hazard before it happens, the quicker you spot it, the more points you get. You need 44/75 to pass that.

Then there's a practical, where you need to demonstrate driving 40 minutes and performing 2/3 reversing maneouvers, and also an emergency stop. 15 driving faults + and you fail.

They will never do it though. The insurance companies bank accounts are sky-high, and they'll want to keep it that way. The law would never be changed unless someone can proof definitely that the companies are stereotyping purely because of age and gender.

Well hey, good for you. We don't have that option here in the US but I'm glad to see that you can get a break on your insurance costs.

Once again I know little about any system of insurance other than the ones here in the US so I can't comment much on your situation. But at least here one has to bear in mind that insurance companies are privately owned businessess and, as such, exist to turn a profit. They charge higher rates to general groups because those groups are (statistically) more likely to cause them to lose money if they charge a flat rate.

Personal interviews for every person applying for insurance would cause these companies to have to hire more people to conduct the interviews or adjust insurance rates based on personality profiles. The additional costs of the hours they'd have to pay workers and the adittional personnel they'd have to hire would either put the company into the red or cause an additional increase in the price of the insurance.

I believe that insurance is madatory is some states but not all. I could be wrong about that but I believe it's required in most. States with madatory auto insurance laws also usually have a minimum amount of insurance that a driver must purchase.