Entries from September 2009 ↓

There’s a sobering saying, “The female of the species is more deadly than the male.” It first surfaced in a poem by Rudyard Kipling and achieved international recognition through the “shock shock horror” song by Space. Taken literally when applied to humanity, it suggests women are more likely to kill you than men. Except, when it comes to driving, this is almost certainly not true. There’s a myth put about by men that women are bad drivers. Talk to the average male driver and they will pour scorn on women, telling tall stories about dangerous behavior on the roads. Yet this sexist view is not supported by the accident statistics. When you add up all the numbers from around the world, men are three times more likely to die on the roads than women. The truth seems to be that men may have better spatial awareness and so slightly better control of their vehicles. But women have better self-control which makes them safer drivers. The result in the gender stakes is that men, particularly when young, are more reckless than women, driving faster with less attention. Women are more cautious, driving more slowly and causing fewer serious accidents. Even more importantly, women have fewer emotional hang-ups about the cars they drive. Whereas men prefer to be seen in fast, sleek sporty cars, women tend to have more modest (and cheaper) tastes. Continue reading →

When you live in a capitalist country, it’s easy to think that free market competition keeps the consumer safe. If anything goes wrong, the consumer can simply change to another supplier and, at a stroke, the problem is solved. Except life does not have to work in a fair way. When large insurance corporations are looking to make a profit to keep their shareholders happy, they do not think of their customers as people with problems. The policy holders are just the means to make a profit. So, government has to step in with regulations to strike a balance. The idea is to limit the companies to a reasonable profit and reduce the risk that consumers will be gouged. Although the GOP is against the idea of any regulation, every state in the union has a licensing system for insurance companies. Only companies with a licence can sell policies in each state, and the condition of getting and keeping a licence is accepting some degree of regulation. How much regulation varies from state to state, but the essence is to offer some protection for the consumers. Continue reading →