temporary car insurance and car crashes

Tooling Around The House And The Things You Learn

My neighbour is an amateur racing driver. His garage is better stocked with tools and equipment than most auto repair shops around town. Whenever I need a tool for some job around the house that isn't in my tool box, I can always count on him to have it. The other day I needed a bolt cut down a bit so it would fit in a tight spot where I was mounting a shelf over the window in my garage. I went to him for help and noticed that his race car was stripped down to the frame.

He had raced that weekend and got in a bad crash. It had bent the frame and he was going to try and straighten it out because a new frame is expensive. We talked about how much a typical crash costs him and I suggested he needed some temporary car insurance. Just something to cover race weekends.

In the UK? You can find short term car insurance here

He laughed and said that his costs were nothing compared to other racing leagues. Formula One, for instance, requires a budget of at least £250 million for just one season. The steering wheel alone costs around £40,000. When one of those cars hits a wall the damage is pretty extensive because everything is built to such fine tolerances. Just brushing into the wall with a front tyre could break the suspension, bend the wheel and ruin the wing. Total cost to fix might be as much as £100,000. It's Formula One drivers are who really need access to temporary car insurance.

He told me about a famous F1 crash involving 14 cars. In 1998 there was heavy rain during the Belgium Grand Prix and a pileup down the main straight eliminated 14 of the 22 cars that started the race. There were tyres rolling down the track, pieces of body work scattered in all directions and amazingly, no one seriously injured. Just imagine the cost of repairing all those cars.

I took the shorter bolts back to my garage and finished installing the shelf. There was a funny sound coming from the compressor set up underneath the garage window. The air conditions is still producing plenty of cool air in the house, but it is going to need to be worked on soon. It's a few years old so the warranty is over. I could use some temporary insurance for that too.