Young person's car insurance

MartinW wrote: Katy wants to learn to drive. She's 17.   MartinW Pays £180!   To add katy = £1100   Quite clear what they are doing here, and the insurance guy from Swinton suggested the same, they are deliberately pricing teenagers off the road.   This will annoy many, but I have always felt that 17 was too young to drive. But the law does state 17. Well it seems the insurance companies are effectively taking matters into their own hands with crazy premiums.   When I think of the huge amount of money I have paid for car insurance over the years, and the minuscule amount I have taken back, something tells me they are making far more profit than they claim, and that teenage drivers may well be an issue in terms of high claims, but not a plausible cause for the huge premiums we pay.

See my post in the rehabilitating criminals thread 

Is it not cheaper to learn with an instructor, you wouldn't need to worry about insurance and petrol. I'm sure I paid a fair bit less than £1k on lessons.

No studying when MartinW past his test. Just read the highway code and attempt to remember it. Then do your test.

Actually, I left my handbrake on and tried to drive away. The old Mini was so puny it didn't budge and inch. I looked at the examiner and said... 'I think there's something wrong with the car.' He glanced down at the handbrake. Oops, the incident convinced me I had therefore failed, so I was so relaxed, pressure off, that I drove brilliantly. And passed first time easily. the examiner asked me only three highway code questions, they did that in thse days if you had driven safely and well.

I'm convinced the handbrake incident helped me pass. As is was before I drove away, the examiner ignored it.

My wife had an even more bizarre incident. The car she was about to be tested in developed a fault, the instructor drove to Bristol Street Motors. While they were there, he met an ex employee. A punch up broke out, and there they were rolling on then floor punching each other in the head, with the staff at BSM and my wife watching on. My wife was of course screaming at them that her test was about to start.

Anyway, they got to the the test center in time, she took her test, and passed first time.

So the moral of the story is, if you want to pass your test, then relax yourself by attempting to drive off with the handbrake on, or arrange for your instructor to engage in mortal combat.