Research carried out by Brake the independent road safety charity inconjuction with Direct Line car insurance has shown rather worrying trends in respect of tired driving despite an estimated five fatalities caused on Britain’s road each year and high numbers of personal injuries.

According to the survey of 800 respondents, over two thirds of those questioned admitted to be tired behind the wheel in the last year. Six years ago the figure was 46%, which is a huge increase. Each week around 10% admitted fatigue.

The consequences when a driver falls asleep at the wheel are all too tragic. Road traffic accidents of this type tend to be at high speed and sometimes involve head on collisions. Government advice on this issue says that motorists should take breaks every two hours on long journeys, however, the survey appears to show that 73% drive for more than 3 hours at a time before taking a break.

Typical unproven methods of trying to keep awake discovered in the survey include opening a window and listening to audio. Brake the independent charity is calling for action from the Government for better motorist education on the issue, increased traffic policing and many other measures to prevent these appalling incidents.

According to the association of British Insurers (AB) fraudulent car insurance claims totalled 410 million last year.

Across the entire insurance industry in 2009, 2000 dishonest insurance claims were detected every week which amounts to a 14% increase on the pervious year. Compare these figures to five years ago and the number appears to have doubled.

Whilst the figures look bad, there are several factors that have no doubt contributed to these increases. These include the recession, new types of fraud include insurance fronting and also better detection rates. In the last few years information through sophisticated databases and deploying advanced techniques to catch fraudsters is now shared amongst major agencies. Additionally, the ABI have introduced their own confidential cheatline which is run by the Insurance Fraud Bureau.

The consciences of getting caught are not worth thinking about as it’s very difficult to obtain insurance and credit. There is also the possibility of a criminal record which can damage future employment prospects.

According to Axa car insurance research, there remains widespread ignorance amongst many UK drivers over driving abroad legal requirements in European countries. The problem could be compounded by the fact that there is forecast to be a large influx of motorists heading across the channel because of continuing air travel strikes and volcanic ash disruption.

Amongst the 2,000 respondents in the survey a third revealed that they are unsure as to whether a GB sticker is required. More worryingly nearly a quarter of those questioned could not categorically answer yes to the question regarding whether they were covered to drive abroad by their car insurance policy.

In respect of country specific views, 40% believed wrongly that it is ok to jump red lights in Italy, 37% assumed incorrectly that is fine to overtake on either side of the motorway in Portugal and 22% thought that there was no requirement to carry a reflective jacket and a red triangle in your car in France, which of course is untrue. Other false beliefs included the assumption by 35% of respondents that is ok to use a mobile phone whilst driving in Holland and 62% still think that a green card is required in Belgium.

In respect of limited understanding of a European neighbours motoring regulations, more than half were correct in assuming that there is no upper limit on German motorways, however, not many in the survey were aware that cars with a low top speed of less than 61kpm are restricted from using such roads.

Following intensive lobbying by the British Insurance Brokers Association and other Insurance trade bodies, one of the last acts of Parliament from the previous Government sees the introduction of electronic motor insurance certificates being issued. The legislation responsible for this is the Road Traffic Act 1988 and Motor Vehicle (Third Party Risks) Regulations 1972.

The move has been welcomed by most of the insurance industry including online brands such as Swiftcover. It is estimated that nearly 10,000 trees a year may be saved if electronic certificates are issued through email or login to an insurers secure website. It is not clear at this stage how many UK car insurers or brokers will use the email or secure website method of distributing the e-certificates.

BIBA are keen to point however, that if accessing e-certificates is not an option because online access is denied then paper insurance certificates must still be sent through the post. In addition, e-certificates that are printed out using a local printer must be legible if they are to be used at the Post Office for the purposes of renewing car tax. It goes without saying that it is an offence to make changes to the e-certificate.

What is clear is that certain insurance companies and brokers will seek to gain an immediate advantage by introducing e-certificates straight away, therefore, reducing overheads. One can hope that the cost savings are in part passed on to motorists through cheaper insurance quotes.

Following constant campaigning by the Association of British Insurers, 80% of motor personal injury claimants injured in road traffic accidents will receive car insurance claim payouts within a period of nine months from the date the claim was notified. This news follows on from the announcement made back in September last year by the Ministry of Justice.

Up until now, it has not been uncommon for claims of this type to take two or more years which is both a drain on insurance company resources and also stressful for claimants. There is of course conditions attached namely that the new rules only apply to new claims made after the 30^th April 2010. Secondly, only motor personal injury claims estimated to fall within the £1,000 to £10,000 valuation are eligible. Thirdly, there will be three defined stages for each claim including collation of information, the claimant representative gathering evidence for the claim and a final stage if required if no agreement is reached on the value of the claim settlement.

In addition to the speedier resolution of these claims it is hoped that legal costs will be now fixed, therefore, reducing current legal bills, which are estimated to be adding around 10% of the cost of car insurance premiums. This will no doubt come as very welcome news for motorists who are suffering high fuel prices and soaring insurance premiums during the recession.