Daily Archives: April 17, 2012

Insurers slammed for extortionate admin fees

April 17, 2012   Sean

Some insurance companies are charging ‘extortionate’ fees for a driver to change minor details on a car policy, a study by Which?  has found. The consumer magazine investigated car and home insurance company administration fees after complaints from consumers.It found that Hastings was charging customers £35 to change a surname on a policy, while Axa and Swiftcover were charging £30 for minor changes including transferring the policy to a new car or changing address.
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Russia kills off the Lada

April 17, 2012   Sean

After more than four decades in production, the legendary Lada is about to be killed off because sales are becoming the joke. We’ve all heard a hundred gags about the Russian brand (What do you call a Lada at the top of a hill? A miracle. BAZING!), but in its home turf the cars have continued to sell like dirty western cheeseburgers for decades.
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US Government wants fix for “unintended acceleration”

April 17, 2012   Sean

The US government’s safety agency (National Traffic Safety Highway Administration) wants all new cars to have a “brake override” feature, so that if drivers hit both accelerator and brake pedal, the engine will return to idle automatically. This follows the controversy over allegations of Toyotas experiencing unintended acceleration. Now the US government has confirmed that it has not been able to substantiate a single case against Toyota. However, it believes driver error can lead to too many cases of hitting both pedals together and it wants car companies to make it impossible for both pedals to activate at the same time.
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