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Friday, January 21, 2011
Suspect female suspect
I suppose the easy thing to say about this particular item would be: “He’ll have to try harder than that to get a cheap deal on women’s car insurance!”
The man in question is a Sydney police officer, caught and charged recently for behaving in an offensive manner whilst off-duty.
Patrolling colleagues discovered him sat in the back of his police car at 10.40pm, parked in an unlit street in the West of the city.
On the seat next to him were his uniform and police issue gun-belt. And how shall we put it, his disguise as a woman was not very convincing.
It’s not a pretty picture.
The man, who had six years of police work behind him, was fined $500 (a little over £300), but it was not recorded whether he lost his job.
I’m inclined to think that a man’s ability (or lack of it) to dress prescriptively in his free time shouldn’t have to affect his status at work. But needless to say, the fact that he was caught in a police vehicle - and sat next to his own police uniform – shines a less than professional light on the Sydney police force.
I expect that in this country, his behaviour would result in an instant dismissal – and probably an inquiry of some drawn-out and expensive kind. But I’d like to think that in the more laid-back antipodes a cop could be caught cross-dressing by his mates; be teased mercilessly about it for a while; and afterwards be given the chance to get back on with his job (and his out-of-hours hobbies) in peace.
Image © Alex Proimos via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: women's car insurance
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Sheilas come off the wheels
It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? I’m talking about that bit in the Sheilas’ Wheels advert where the brunette Shelia says: “..and visit our ace website!” with her all-too-English accent.
Everything else in the commercial has been in the same mock-Australian tone we’re used to from the popular ladies’ car insurance firm, and then she goes and drops this accent bombshell.
The joke kind of derails.
I mean, everybody knows Sheilas’ Wheels is a UK company – it’s actually a subsidiary of Esure. And we knew that in all probability the three women who star in their adverts aren’t actually Australian (in fact, one of them is. The other two are from the UK).
But for the sake of the antipodean joke that is the foundation of their entire brand, you’d think she could fake it, right?
As it turns out, copywriters at Sheilas’ Wheels also seem rather keen to distance themselves from the Australian identity they have carved out over the past six years. “No, we're not Australian and we don't sell insurance in Australia” is a mantra that appears over and over again on the company’s webpages.
So why the about face - why try deliberately to undermine the gag? Nobody really believes that an Australian-only insurance company would be advertising on British telly – and telling the joke this way is about as funny as forgetting the punchline.
In fact, the firm’s website is riddled with such strange inconsistencies. On one page for instance, pictures of the Sheilas are accompanied by their autographed signatures – all of which read ‘Sheila’. Yet on the next, the women are identified as Cathi, Emma and Carly.
We can only speculate as to the explanation for this. Maybe after six years of the same women’s car insurance marketing strategy, some staff at Sheilas’ have started to really believe they are Australian. Maybe the Sheilas themselves have started to believe it (in one case, they would be right).
But in any case: maybe it’s time for a new marketing strategy?
Everything else in the commercial has been in the same mock-Australian tone we’re used to from the popular ladies’ car insurance firm, and then she goes and drops this accent bombshell.
The joke kind of derails.
I mean, everybody knows Sheilas’ Wheels is a UK company – it’s actually a subsidiary of Esure. And we knew that in all probability the three women who star in their adverts aren’t actually Australian (in fact, one of them is. The other two are from the UK).But for the sake of the antipodean joke that is the foundation of their entire brand, you’d think she could fake it, right?
As it turns out, copywriters at Sheilas’ Wheels also seem rather keen to distance themselves from the Australian identity they have carved out over the past six years. “No, we're not Australian and we don't sell insurance in Australia” is a mantra that appears over and over again on the company’s webpages.
So why the about face - why try deliberately to undermine the gag? Nobody really believes that an Australian-only insurance company would be advertising on British telly – and telling the joke this way is about as funny as forgetting the punchline.
In fact, the firm’s website is riddled with such strange inconsistencies. On one page for instance, pictures of the Sheilas are accompanied by their autographed signatures – all of which read ‘Sheila’. Yet on the next, the women are identified as Cathi, Emma and Carly.
We can only speculate as to the explanation for this. Maybe after six years of the same women’s car insurance marketing strategy, some staff at Sheilas’ have started to really believe they are Australian. Maybe the Sheilas themselves have started to believe it (in one case, they would be right).
But in any case: maybe it’s time for a new marketing strategy?
Image © Robert Couse-Baker via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: ladies' car insurance, women's car insurance
Monday, January 17, 2011
Drugalysers good news for car insurance
It’s long been a paradox that although police have it within their power to breathalyse suspected drink drivers, there has been no effective on-the-spot testing for suspected drug-drivers.
In this regard, we in the UK lag behind many other developed nations. Spain, Croatia and Australia are all have methods for ensuring that drug-drivers are tested on-the-spot for the presence of drugs such as ecstasy, amphetamines and cannabis.
However, here in the UK, if a driver is pulled over by police, he or she must perform a series of tasks, such as touching their finger to their nose, estimating the passing of 30 seconds, standing on one leg, and walking in a straight line.
Although these tests might be useful indicators of a driver’s fitness to drive, they are hardly scientific and do not compare favourably with the saliva-testing machines set to be approved by the Home Office.
Mike Penning, the Road Safety Minister, commented, “Drug drivers show a flagrant disregard for the law and put the lives of responsible motorists at risk.
"This announcement means that we are a step closer to making sure that the Police have the equipment they need to tackle this selfish minority more effectively and make the roads safer for everyone.”
It also means that, if we’re able to get a section of dangerous drivers off the road, we’re a step closer to making car insurance just a little bit cheaper.
In this regard, we in the UK lag behind many other developed nations. Spain, Croatia and Australia are all have methods for ensuring that drug-drivers are tested on-the-spot for the presence of drugs such as ecstasy, amphetamines and cannabis.
Although these tests might be useful indicators of a driver’s fitness to drive, they are hardly scientific and do not compare favourably with the saliva-testing machines set to be approved by the Home Office.
Mike Penning, the Road Safety Minister, commented, “Drug drivers show a flagrant disregard for the law and put the lives of responsible motorists at risk.
"This announcement means that we are a step closer to making sure that the Police have the equipment they need to tackle this selfish minority more effectively and make the roads safer for everyone.”
It also means that, if we’re able to get a section of dangerous drivers off the road, we’re a step closer to making car insurance just a little bit cheaper.
Image © Lee J Haywood via Flickr under Creative Commons Licence
Friday, January 7, 2011
Take the second exit – oh sorry, my mistake!
I know many people who have love-hate relationships with their sat-nav.
Some motorists rely heavily upon these devices to find their way anywhere they haven’t ventured before, but if they’re put in a bad mood because of traffic or after being instructed to drive down a dead-end road, they shout at the sat-nav as if its feelings could be hurt.
Here’s some news – in the future there’s a possibility that the emotionless little sat-nav’s feelings could really be hurt by a driver’s anger towards it.
The head of an "emotional robotics" group at Cambridge University is trying to create computers capable of detecting different emotions in human voices, and then reacting accordingly.
The professor explains, "If a driver was stressed, [the sat-nav] could stop a mobile phone from ringing, turn the radio off and even stop giving instructions until the driver had recovered his composure."
The aim of the invention would be to relieve the stress which can sometimes be caused while driving. I can’t wait to hear a sat-nav apologise for telling me to drive across farmland or through a new office building to reach my destination!
Here’s some news – in the future there’s a possibility that the emotionless little sat-nav’s feelings could really be hurt by a driver’s anger towards it.
The head of an "emotional robotics" group at Cambridge University is trying to create computers capable of detecting different emotions in human voices, and then reacting accordingly.
The professor explains, "If a driver was stressed, [the sat-nav] could stop a mobile phone from ringing, turn the radio off and even stop giving instructions until the driver had recovered his composure."
The aim of the invention would be to relieve the stress which can sometimes be caused while driving. I can’t wait to hear a sat-nav apologise for telling me to drive across farmland or through a new office building to reach my destination!
Image © racheocity via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Cheaper car insurance for women
There are lots of theories put forward to explain why women are safer drivers than men and deserve cheaper car insurance. Whereas once I might not have sought to understand the whys and wherefores but instead used this fact as a pretext for waging a tongue-in-cheek battle of the sexes, now that I am the mother of a teen-aged son, there’s no risk of me getting smug about it.Actually, I’m deeply concerned. Globally, around 1,000 young people die in road accidents every day, with the vast majority of incidents caused by young men.
There seems to be something in young men, whether it is a gene or simply a complex hormonal cocktail, that makes them more prone to driving recklessly – or perhaps something else is at play.
Well, according to researchers from the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium, there might be…
The researchers attempted to see if teenagers who play racing video games are more likely to go on to become reckless and excessively dangerous drivers.
Using an anonymous questionnaire to monitor driver behavior, the researchers found that those who play driving games, which, let us remember, are mostly boys, were far more likely to speed and drive recklessly once they become licensed.
Although the study shows no substantive causal link between video games and dangerous driving, it certainly provides substantive material for debate, as well as a very good reason why I didn’t buy my son the X-box he so wanted for Christmas.
Image © ((brian)) via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: cheaper car insurance