Winter weather

There's been loads of talk in the media about the return of the winter weather, of the cost of the snow to businesses in lost trading, the poor preparation and response by councils to keeping roads open during the snow falls and the state of the roads with all the pot holes as a result of the snow and ice.

But it's all very quiet on the "global warming" issue.

So why is that? Nothing to do with the public discreditation of the computer models that have been used to predict future weather trends - No! Or the skewing of those already flawed predictions by the media to blow it up into a sensational story - Heavens Forbid! Or, the spin being put on it by politicians in an attempt to draw public attention away from their greedy expenses claims and letting their banking buddies off the hook for the recession they caused - Of Course Not!

But because of all this snow that we have and still are experiencing - insurance companies are forcasting huge increases in premiums to cover all the motoring accidents that have occurred in the snow. Being my usual sceptical self I've been looking at the bigger picture, and what do I find? Motoring accidents are only marginally up for the time of year for the simple reason that the motoring organisations are reporting that people just abandoned their cars and left them at home. Why? Simply beacause anybody who has passed their driving test in the last 20 years hasn't seen conditions like those we have been experiencing and didn't know how to drive in them, and even if they had, the penchance for wide alloy wheels and fat tyres with traction control and ABS meant that the cars were incapable of coping with the conditions even if the driver could.

So why are premiums getting a hike? It's those bankers again! Loans and mortgages are being defaulted on, new mortgages are being taken out in much lower volumes and premiums for insuring those loans have gone up - so many are opting to not take them out. On top of that the insurance companies are having to pay out on the defaulted loans in their portfolio and they have to make up the deficit somewhere. Cue the good old motorist - they can pay for the mistakes of others. After all, they pay more than everyone else for everything else.