Insurance Bond

Today is Back To The Future Day.

But I covered that last week so let's talk James Bond instead.

Here he is getting out of his Aston Martin DB10 - a car you can't actually buy.

Therefore, it would be a nightmare to insure.  I've just renewed my car insurance so I know it can be a bit pricey - mine was not far short of £300.  But I do have full no-claims discount.

One company I didn't ask for a quote from though, was Kwik Fit Insurance.  I've heard several stories over the years of people going in to Kwik Fit Centres with a puncture, or needing some cheap tyres, and being told they need a new exhaust and a new set of shocks.

Shocking.

So imagine trying to get a motor insurance quote and finding out you need life insurance and pet insurance too.

Kwik Fit have also come up with a quote for Mr.Bond.

Here it is.

It seems to take in to account third-party items that I'm not sure he would be liable for - like damage to a Jaguar C-X75 (also unavailable for sale - and unavailable for replace as new) but surely it is the responsibility of whoever looks after Spectre's insurance.  I'd imagine they would accept knock-for-knock on that one.

It also takes into account "Number of near-death experiences" but doesn't mention occupation.  He could call himself "Navy Officer" or "Government Employee" in which case, that might not be too bad.  I don't remember seeing "assassin" on my confused.com form so that may not be an option.

Obviously Mr.Bond will not have built up a no-claims.

Kwik Fit seem to think that Q has to foot the bill.  If so, he could do a lot worse than seeing what Confused can do for him - bound to be cheaper than Kwik Fit's £1.5 million.

And he'll get a free Brian toy.

Now There's Two of Them

I've always hated the BMW X6:

I've made it no secret that I categorise it alongside the Fiat Multipla, the Google Self-Driving car and the Hyundai Atoz as a completely stupid looking car.

Unfortunately, it looks like 250000 sales means that there a lot of people who like it.

Including Mercedes:

Meet the GLE Coupe.

Or BMW X6 as I'd call it.

This interesting little article from caradvice.com.au, Mercedes-Benz’s global chief of design Gorden Wagener spills the beans - or the Benz.

Looking at the comments at the bottom of the article, the car fans of Australia tend to agree with me.

Wagener admits that BMW invented the SUV coupe segment but reckons it overcomplicates its designs with complex surfacing.  It may have been true in the Chris Bangle days but not so much now.

He goes on to say, "...in the end I think we managed to do a very unique car, a very clean car that is essential for our purity philosophy, it’s quite sexy and sculptured."

Very unique!  Very unique!   OK, I'll let that pass since English isn't his first language - but it isn't even slightly unique and it certainly isn't sexy.

Sexy like James Bond is sexy?

But then again, the Mercs are always driven by the baddies.

Bond Villain

My story last month about Roger Moore didn't really have much to do with James Bond but this one does actually involve Steven Berkoff who played General Orlov in Octopussy alongside Roger Moore.

Now, being a Daily Mail story, they do enjoy a misleading headline.

For example: Pay and dismay: Mercedes left marooned after builders excavate station car park around it

No it wasn't, the story here clearly states that the builders left an escape ramp.

Another good example: Mystery solved! Elizabeth Hurley's car found covered in parking tickets after reports it was stolen during shopping trip

No it wasn't - it had three on it. Story here. Nearly another James Bond connection though - she was a star of Austin Powers which is a very entertaining JB spoof.

Anyway, the misleading Berkoff headline is James Bond villain Steven Berkoff, 75, banned from the road for jumping red light when he heard police sirens

He wasn't. He lost his licence for getting 12 penalty points on it. He also rather naughtily tried to declare his Californian driving licence number but that didn't work.

He claimed he moved through the red lights to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle. Seems like a reasonable thing to do, although he did it at 27mph!

It did get me thinking about what I would do if waiting at traffic lights and an emergency vehicle came up behind with its sirens blaring and lights flashing. What is the correct thing to do?

Well, thank you to Jerry from Lincolnshire who taught me something when he added the following comment to the Mail article, "It is absolutely never the right thing to do to pass a red light in these circumstances. It is absolutely not a defence to the crime of passing a red light to say you moved to allow a blue light vehicle to pass. If you do pass a red light and get prosecuted any compentent lawyer will advise you to plead guilty and try to minimse the sentce through mitigation. Emergncy vehicle drivers are trained that if they are behind a vehicle stopped at a red light they MUST wait for the light to go green before they can expect the vehicle in front to move. They are also supposed to turn off any siren until the light change but can keep blue lights on."

What he says is backed up here so I gave his comment a green up-arrow.


Now, basically, Berkoff jumped a red light at nearly 30mph, pretended he didn't have a British driving licence and claimed he was making way for an emergency vehicle. Worse than that, he was driving a Beetle.

General Orlov would not have been impressed.