stuboy

Last year I wrote in a thread about how difficult it was to recruit English Kids for kitchen work (washing up etc.) some years ago and how I preferred to use immigrant labour. I have recently bought another pub in the same village as I was some years ago and boy have things changed. I now have local kids and parents asking me almost on a weekly basis to find a job for their offspring and I have been very impressed. These new set of kids want to work they are keen, don't moan about working weekend evenings/Sundays or whatever.
One kid arrived breathless the other day after cycling 6 miles from his home to show us all the new Samung Smart Phone he'd bought from his wages, so proud was he that he asked me to put it in the safe 'til the end of the night.
Listeneing to their conversations they seem to have a better understanding that if you want something you have to go and earn it you can no longer rely on generous parents forking out for everything. If this recession has any up sides then maybe it's that todays teenagers are learning a valuable lesson.
Parents have stopped saying "yes" to every demand from their children probably because they can't afford to as they could 10 years ago and these kids are now learning the value of money. It gives me hope.

Dick Dasterdly

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Lynn R

I'm very glad to hear it, but I've never thought that all young people should be tarred with the same brush. I have a nephew of 19 who is doing an apprenticeship with BT, and his work base is a very long and awkward journey from home. Initially he walked to the nearest railway station (2 miles away), caught a train part way and then took a taxi for the rest in order to get there in time, all paid for out of his wages. He'd passed his driving test at 17 but couldn't afford a car because of the cost of insurance, but after a couple of months of him coming home soaked every night his Mum and Dad have helped him get his first car and insure it, he is going without a holiday this year to save up enough to pay the next year's premium himself.

stuboy

Lynn. I am hearing this sort of thing all the time. Another waiter wants a white VW Golf (nothing else for some reason) and although he can just about afford the car he can't afford the insurance. His solution is to work here for another six months after which he will be able to afford the insurance. They are learning, there are some great youngsters out there.

Lynn R

Good luck to him, I'm sure he'll get there and there's nothing better than getting something you really, really want (even if nobody else can understand why you want it!) when you've worked and saved to get it for yourself.

As an aside, I'm sure the cost of car insurance for youngsters has always been high, but has it gone up an awful lot in recent years? The reason I ask is that at my nephew's age, my brother had a BMW (not a new one, but bought and insured by himself) and I dread to think what the insurance would be for a 19 year old driving one of those these days. He got rid of it after a couple of years after getting fed up of being stopped for the police who automatically assumed that a young kid driving a Beemer must either be a drug dealer or have stolen it.

Dick Dasterdly

No disrespect to those mentioned, but I often think there should be restrictions on the size and power of motors that new licencees are allowed to drive.
If they get through the first four years without any major offences then no problem after that, otherwise restrict them for another four years till they learn a bit common sense.

Lynn R

Maybe so.

But the cost of insuring even small cars now for young drivers seems prohibitive to me, and must limit a lot of them in being able to cast their net a bit wider when it comes to looking for work if their parents aren't in a position to help them out. The cheapest solution my sister and her husband were able to find to insure my nephew's little Renault Clio was £4,000 a year - and the car only cost £600!

And not all young kids are irresponsible drivers, even if they like the boy racer cars. My brother has never been involved in an accident (his fault or anybody else's) in over 20 years of driving, and my 21 year old nephew who now drives an Audi after starting off with a Clio hasn't either.

rugbymatt

Insurance is becoming a joke in the UK, I have driven for nearly 19 years now and I have never once made a claim, never once been refused insurance and have always been fully comp but despite this I have to fight, every year, to stop my insurance going up by £100. This time around I had to ditch my insurance brokers because they could not get my insurance under £800. My last insurance was £550! I have been with those brokers for 7 years!


Its the biggest racket out there, the insurance companies have colluded help develop software with the police to check insurance on the move, they have linked up with the police to make it easy to find uninsured drivers on the move and once the police adopted the new technology they lobbied the powers that be to tighten up the law with regards to insurance and to focus the police attention onto it and then they drive the prices up beyond many peoples ability to pay, knowing they have to pay of they won't be able to drive. For years they have told us the reason insurance premiums are so high is because of uninsured drivers yet they wholeheartedly reject any ways of making every taxed car on the road insured third party within your tax disc. Why? Because its a massive industry and time will tell before another huge scandal breaks regarding insurance companies!

Dick Dasterdly

It's not all down to the insurance companies.
They are getting hit by more and more scams every year against which they have little or no defence.

For instance just consider the ever increasing number of staged accidents arranged with a big pay out in mind for claimed whiplash and back injuries and similar, very difficult to medically disprove and expensive to fight against the hordes of ambulance chasers looking for a piece of the action.
Even the youngsters are well into it now, buy an old banger, make it road legal then crash bang wallop, fill your boots.

mikelincs

The biggest problem with UK car insurance is the 'Ambulance chasers' who seem to inhabit most hospital A&E depts. trying to get anyone involved in any accident to make a claim, the cost of settling such claims has risen exponetially over the last few years and makes up most of the premium increases, no good people saying they haven't had an accident, they easily could have one in the next year.