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Archives for February 2011

Latest Trend: Pay As You Drive Car Insurance

February 10, 2011 by admin 1 Comment

Imagine paying for auto insurance based on how much you drive. Instead of having your car insurance rates based solely on factors you cannot control including your age, your gender, where you live and your credit score, your rates would reflect the number of miles you drive in a year.

Onstar & similar technologies may help to lower your auto insurance costs.

“Pay as you drive” insurance is here and with it comes a new option for consumers who want to save money. This new arrangement, however, does come with some strings attached, including surrendering certain personal freedoms.

Telematics Technology

For consumers who drive a few thousand miles annually, pay as you drive policies may be an attractive option. Insurance companies know that the fewer miles you drive, the less likely you’re going to have an accident. Not many insurers have been willing to base auto insurance rates on miles driven, given the complexity of verifying that information. Thanks to telematics technology such as offered by OnStar, Entune and SYNC, auto insurers may be willing to reduce insurance premiums in exchange for monitoring your mileage and perhaps your driving behavior.

Pay as you drive policies are approved at the state level once insurance regulators have established some guidelines. Progressive Insurance offers its “Snapshop” insurance in 27 states and Allstate Insurance has rolled out “Drive Wise” in Illinois and is expected to expand this option to more states in 2011 reports Edmunds.[1]

Insurance Plans

The Progressive and Allstate plans take into consideration driving behavior along with miles driven. These auto insurers track your braking and acceleration patterns as well as the time of day you drive. Expect to pay more if you have a lead foot or if you’re given to driving late at night or in the early hours of the morning. There is much less traffic on the road during those times, but driver fatigue is a significant contributor for accidents.

Not everyone is smitten with pay as you drive auto insurance, including privacy advocates who see this option as one more way for consumers to slowly lose their rights. Advocates worry that auto insurers will track where you go and how fast you get there. Insurers contend that the information they glean is limited to how safely and how long you drive and is not based on other factors.

Teen Drivers

Will your teenager benefit from pay as you drive insurance? Perhaps yes. With auto insurers able to track behavior and miles driven, they’ll know enough about teen driving habits to set rates accordingly. Your youngster may not admit to careless driving, but that behavior will become readily apparent the next time you open up your car insurance bill.

For more information please check out Churchill car insurance uk to explore your options.

References

[1] Edmunds.com: Pay-As-You-Drive Insurance Goes Into High Gear


Resources

Progressive Insurance: Snapshot

Allstate Insurance: Drive Wise


See Also — How Are Insurance Scores Determined?

Filed Under: Automotive News Tagged With: ALLSTATE INSURANCE, auto insurance, AUTO INSURER, car insurance, EDMUNDS, PAY AS YOU DRIVE, PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE

Book Review — NASCAR Then and Now

February 4, 2011 by Harrison Card Leave a Comment

Very much a rags to riches story, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing went from a few dirt tracks to big time business in less than half a century. Given the rather long name, it’s no wonder the acronym, NASCAR, now describes the league, the cars and a culture.

Contemporary Spectacle

With tremendous amounts of spectators and quite a bit of money wrapped up in the show, NASCAR now represents a cultural force. As with most forms of entertainment, stock car racing came from a varied background, but the unified league has allowed for organized competition. NASCAR: Then and Now (Motorbooks; Ben White; 2010; $25.00) provides a comparative look into the history of NASCAR across the years.

The very definition of a coffee table book, NASCAR: Then and Now, doesn’t provide much in terms of words. A little bit of history given at the beginning of each chapter provides an introduction. The focus of the book is on the photographs – a wealth of old and new pictures offering a high resolution glimpse into the action. The quality of the pictures gleaned from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s gives the book a huge advantage. Many ‘then and now’ books are also an exhibition in ‘then and now’ of photo quality, but this book provides historic photos with amazing depth and clarity, taking the viewer back to the early days of Daytona Beach and Bristol to show just how much the sport has grown and changed.

Identity Loss

The contrast between the times shows how far the sport has come. However, it also reveals the severity of NASCAR’s identity loss. The book highlights the innovation and perseverance of the early NASCAR teams, with an entire chapter devoted to the teams and home town boy drivers. Yesterday’s NASCAR was dominated by rough and tumble men like Cale Yarborough whose soiled face defined the sport of old, offering a stark contrast to today’s perfectly coiffured celebrity driver who leaves fans wondering if Carl Edwards has even ever seen a wrench.

The focus on the race tracks offers some of the best side-by-side comparisons due to similarly angled shots. The amazing expansion of the grandstands at Bristol provides an obvious illustration to the huge numbers of people involved with the sport. Aerial shots of each track give a striking view and the surprisingly high quality of the vintage photographs makes the side-by-side comparisons quite easy.

Sometimes, however, the photos will be from different or reversed angles. While this doesn’t detract terribly from the experience, it seems odd that a similar angle couldn’t be produced for the newer picture.

Engineering Achievements

Perhaps the most jarring example of progress can be found with photos of crashes illustrating a few very violent happenings. While NASCAR may have lost some of its early mystique, the advances in safety cannot be commended enough. Most obviously, the interior of a modern car features a complicated scaffolding of roll cage supplemented by harnesses and neck protecting seats.

The areas surrounding the tracks have a huge impact on safety as well. Early oval tracks used steel guardrails as barriers, resulting in a particularly graphic image of a car impaled on a broken one. While concrete walls have prevented this, the SAFER barrier, provides a great safety advantage through its impact absorbing foam.

As for pit lane, the image of an open pit lane, directly next to the racing surface at Darlington gives potential for a great deal of injury should someone get turned on the front straight. Today’s pit lane features a welcome wall of separation on both sides to protect the crews.

Clone Cars

As much as the tracks, fans and show matter, without the cars NASCAR wouldn’t be very much. In the beginning, stock cars came straight from production cars. The top, Strictly Stock division, was just that: stock. While today’s cars feature tube frames and the exact same body, the early cars actually looked like cars, rather than bricks with paint. Early paint schemes included the street horsepower of the homologated engines, a local dealer or two or some other local business.

The book makes it easy to see the progression of NASCAR into its current corporate era, as the decade-by-decade photos show the progress of sponsorships. Also, while the engines of yesteryear were required to have a production variant, today’s engines are not found in any passenger cars.

Team equipment progression is somewhat mind boggling. From a couple of jack stands and workbenches onto full portable shops with huge tool chests, the crews of modern cars have a lot more to work with. As with every other part of the book, though the technology has improved to amazing levels, the original methods seem to portray a great bit more soul.

Pictorial Perspective

Those looking for a complete NASCAR history should look elsewhere, as NASCAR: Then and Now provides very little detail in its captions or introductions. However, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then this book is worth about a couple hundred thousand words. With strikingly beautiful photography, the book makes for a great quick read, providing an image of just how far an all-American sport has come.


NASCAR Then and Now

  • 144 Pages, Hardcover
  • Nigel Kinrade, Photographer
  • Smyle Media Archived Photography
  • Historical & Contemporary Comparative
  • Motorbooks
  • ISBN: 9780760338148

See Also — Book Review — McQueen’s Machines

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: Ben White, book review, MOTORBOOKS, MOTORSPORTS, NASCAR

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