Nibbled News

Cancelling coverage too early costs motorist

"As I approached the intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident."  

 When it comes to having adequate insurance coverage to protect our home, auto, life and family we all want the best plans that money can buy but at a reasonable cost.

Admittedly, we are all bargain hunters when it comes to this subject consistently demanding the most amount of coverage possible for the least amount of money.

Many folks accept this as a cost of modern life. Other people only weigh in the monthly cost of coverage and do not view the long term effect of prematurely cancelling their overall automobile insurance coverage. Acting hastily and cancelling some types of insurance could seriously jeopardize a person's financial situation.

My own insurance agent the other day told me about one of his long-standing customers cancelling his auto collision insurance. The vehicle was twelve years old and the guy involved wanted to reduce some of his monthly insurance costs. He felt he was a careful driver and did not want to continue to spend good money protecting an older vehicle.

The agent tried desperately to dissuade him from taking this course of action by offering him a number of less costly insurance alternatives. He outlined the costs involved if the man was involved in an accident. The man listened with a deaf ear. He was determined to take the collision coverage off this vehicle. 

The agent reluctantly cancelled the man's collision coverage and gave him his business card in case he wanted to change his mind. He signed the appropriate release forms for the agent. The client thanked him for his assistance and then left the office.

Ten minutes later the agent's telephone rang. The client whose collision insurance he had previously cancelled was calling him to report that he was involved in an accident just outside the insurance office's parking lot. The man was distraught and frantic. He asked the agent if he could help him.

The agent tried to explain to him that there was nothing he could do to assist him. He suggested the man call the police and report the accident. The driver had willingly declined the collision insurance coverage and was not covered . The car was substantially damaged and the cost to repair it would have to come from out-of-pocket finances.

Both drivers were not injured in the accident. The other driver was going to visit his own insurance agent to upgrade his own collision coverage when the accident happened. It was just one of those ironies of life . It happens.

The moral of the story: before you start lopping off monthly insurance costs make sure you have weighed all the pros and the cons. Sometimes a penny saved in one area can end up costing you big bucks in another. Try to think things through and get the big picture before you act.

Many Automobile Problems Just Happen

"WHILE I waited at a service station for my car to be tuned, a woman drove up in a clunker that rattled, wheezed and coughed to a stop in a cloud of smoke. She rolled down her window and asked the attendant if she could wait while it was being fixed. "Sure," replied the attendant. "It'll take awhile, but get your things. You can sleep over there under the oil racks."    --- Anon

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Sometimes a person's best friend is his automobile dealership's repair crew. These specially trained service technicians can make or break a customer's overall satisfaction with the vehicle they have purchased. They are at times a  company's first line of defence in ensuring customer product satisfaction.

 Highly calibrated diagnostic equipment can be used to zero in on a technical problem that is currently plaguing a car owner. Other times something as simple as inside product information can give this same harried owner a plan of attack when dealing with auto issues.

My neighbor Vic is a retiree and purchased a Chrysler Sebring a few years ago. This car has been the apple of his eye and for the past number of years he has serviced the car religiously according to the owner's manual. It is a line of mid size car that was sold by Chrysler from 1995 to 2010. It offers stylish good looks and is not a gas guzzler.

Recently, Vic's overall satisfaction with his car has been seriously tested. A cold snap in the weather has sent temperatures plummeting well below the freezing mark. This frigid change has caused his car to emit a snap-crackle-pop sound whenever he starts the engine The vehicle starts alright and there is no outpouring of dark smoke. Just the irritating sound.

He consulted his dealership mechanic about the problem and discovered that many Chrysler and Jeep products are experiencing this same noisy situation whenever the temperatures plunge beneath a certain level. Apparently the power steering fluid begins to congeal like jello due to the cold.  

Vic told me a number of the mechanics had considered recommending that customers experiencing this problem use General Motors power steering fluid as a replacement for their own. However they were not sure as to what the consequences might be on the overall performance of the vehicles. The fluid might damage the gaskets and other internal working parts  used in the Chrysler-Jeep products.

The weather has changed for the better and the temperatures have become a bit more moderate. Vic is now able to start his vehicle's engine without the accompanying noise. He doesn't mind the fact that he has to scrape ice off the windshield or brush away the snow. Its the unexpected winter complications that throw a monkey wrench into his daily routines that bother him.

 

Impatient People Should Never Drive Buses

Ralph Cramden, a television character portrayed many years ago by Jackie Gleason, was a bus driver for the fictional Gotham Bus Company. He was a soft-hearted man who loved his wife, was frustrated by his lack of personal success and had a very short temper that many times landed him in hot water.

Although this portrayal was fictional there are many folks out there today who do drive a bus and also have short temper fuses waiting to be ignited by the proper stimulus. This potential emotional explosion could conceivably result in serious accidents , injury and death to their passengers.

Granted that we live in economically challenging times. Jobs are scarce and people are desperate to find and ultimately secure for themselves any kind of employment. But, in my opinion,  impatient people should never attempt to become bus drivers. They eventually become  a menace to themselves, their passengers and the general driving public as well.

According to many taffic safety studies a number of these drivers  over time tend to flaunt the safe driving rules of the road, cause more accidents and create more unsafe incidents than other less stressed drivers. Their stringent passenger deadlines when combined  with the  on-the-job expectations of their employers transform them into aggressive road raged ogres.

School bus drivers, public transportation drivers and special needs drivers for the handicapped over time eventually succumb to the urge to rule the road and dominate the flow of traffic. After all they are the larger vehicle on the road. Their passenger's safety and well being never enters into their equation for success.

The size of their vehicles combined with the number of passengers they carry at any one time helps them foster the belief that they are the supreme masters of the road . All other vehicles in the vicinity must submit to their dominance. To their way of thinking red lights are merely a deterrent to them completing their route successfully and on time.

Over the past few weeks I have seen school buses run red lights, drive faster than the posted speed limit in school zones and at times strand youngsters who were a few seconds late for their scheduled pick up time.

The parents were outraged but the drivers offered them the explanation that they had their schedule to meet. School administrators and union officials backed the drivers' reasons for the stranding of the young students. This smugness did not sit well with the parents who were forced to drive their children to school.

I was recently driving behind a small sized, specially designed vehicle for people confined to wheel chairs. The driver of the vehicle easily darted back and forth through traffic, ran a few red lights and took many of the turns at a rate of speed that shuffled his passengers about like eggs in an opened container. Many of the passengers were clinging to the hand rails inside the vehicle for safety and stability.

I realize that not all public transportation drivers fit the emotional description I have offered. Many of them are actually responsible, courteous men and women who take their jobs seriously and place their commitment to safe handling procedures at high levels. These folks ought to be commended.

There are however those drivers who put deadlines and schedules before safety. These folks receive more police citations for unsafe driving practices than normal. They want to please their boss and not tend to the safety of their passengers. They are the drivers that should be rooted out of the system and replaced by people who place passenger safety at the top of their list.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry Buddy, Your Dog Can't Drive The Car

" I used to look at (my dog) Smokey and think, 'If you were a little smarter, you could tell me what you were thinking', and he'd look at me like he was saying, 'If you were a little smarter, I wouldn't have to.'" --- Fred Jungclaus

Imagine this situation. You are sitting at a red light waiting  to make a left hand turn. It is an unusually warm summer day.

The cooling beads of sweat are playfully and slowly trickling down the back of your neck. Your shirt has absorbed about as much moisture as the high priced paper towel might have done.

You have waited your turn  patiently in the sweltering sun for what to you seems like an eternity. The traffic light finally turns green and you begin to execute your left turn.

The oncoming lane of vehicles is light for this time of the day. You casually glance over your right shoulder towards the curb lane to check for any oncoming traffic. There are no pedestrians or other vehicles impeding your making the turn.

At that moment you notice that the operator of the vehicle beside you in the non turning lane is not a human being afterall but rather a large, shaggy headed bouvier with its left paw hanging freely outside the driver's side of the curb laned vehicle while its tongue hangs freely from its drooling mouth.

You do a visual double take hoping that you are not suffering from some form of temporary dementia or weather induced heat stroke. As that vehicle continues onward past your own vehicle you notice that a hand now tugs on the dog's leash and yanks it towards the passenger side of the car.

To you it seemed that the frisky but very large puppy had jumped up on the driver's lap, blocked his field of vision and commanded the driver's side of the car while it had stopped for the red light.

This incident could have proven fatal if the dog decided to leap onto its master's lap while the vehicle was moving. Fortunately no one was injured.  I'm certain the driver of the car did not learn to be a more careful driver from the experience.

The warmer summer conditions cause many people to abandon their usually dependable common sense notions. People want to bond closer with their animals and fail to accept the fact the an unharnessed animal bounding freely in the front seat of their cars could lead to traffic fatalities, injuries and possibly death.

One driver with a Ford sport utility vehicle  had two  large doberman roaming freely and unfettered inside the passenger compartment of the vehicle. The windows of the SUV were opened and when the vehicle stopped at a red light one of the dogs leapt through the window. 

 The large dog  immediately  proceeded  to attack a female pedestrian who was out and about walking her poodle. The driver managed to finally safely stop his vehicle and restrain the attacking dog before any serious injury could occur to either the pedestrian or the smaller , startled animal.

If the dogs in the above situations were chihuahua sized then the matter would have been both amusing and entertaining. In these instances however the size and weight of the dogs created a potential physical threat to both fellow motorists and innocent pedestrians in the immediate vicinity.

Dogs, large or small,  should be outfitted with some type of physical restraint mechanism which would effectively limit their range of movement in a moving vehicle. This type of restraint apparatus should be given the same status that a child restraint seat has for youngsters who travel in the family vehicle with their parents.

Drivers who allow their pets to roam freely inside their vehicles should be fined as heavily as those parents who do not ensure their infants are properly strapped into their special infant seats. They should also receive demerit points for not driving in a responsible and safe manner.

Children and four legged animals obviously do not fall  within the same category of passenger safety. But the amount of physical damage that a wildly careening , 90 pound, out of control animal can produce during an auto accident warrants that some type of physically restraining harness or travel case be used to safely transport the animal from one destination point to another.

Letting your family pet roam freely in the back of your pickup truck is not a responsible way to show you care for man's best friend. Small children and animals depend upon adults to provide due care, caution and concern for their safety and well being.

To provide less than the best care for them should be considered criminal. Monetary fines and demerit points might help to educate those folks who publicly ignore their responsibilities.