How being over 80 affects your car insurance premiums.

I originally wrote this article in 2022, but it never made it past draft. I've decided to publish it now even though the amounts are woefully out of date, but I think the same situation may apply today.

Whilst helping a person who was in their 80s with their car insurance renewal, I started to wonder how much of a difference a person's age makes to their car insurance premium. I did a test and took 20 years off the person's age, effectively from 84 to 64. The car was a Mazda CX5 (2015).

Here's what I found.

Woolworths: $2,544.33
Age to 20 years less: $1,339.27

Woolworths drive less pay less: $1,701.69
Age to 20 years less: $895.73

AAMI: $1,108.75
Age to 20 years less: $732.53

RACV: $1747.02
Age to 20 years less: $1,072.83

As you can see the premium for being over 80 is considerable.

Kelvin Eldridge

Dental item numbers and dental schedule fees.

I'm currently reviewing and testing new dentists. Not particularly happy with the current one as the business changed and the dentists have changed. However, checking out new dentists isn't as easy as I thought.

Naturally I don't want to pay through the roof, but to complicate things even more, I'm thinking of getting rid of the health fund top extras we're currently paying for. The top extras is costing $1,686.88 a year (after the 25% government rebate) and frankly if I claimed everything available in a year the most that could be claimed is $16,000 for two people. The likelihood of claiming a couple of thousand a year is very low, and rarely do we claim even close to the money we pay. When there's something serious such as dental implants, you'll be lucky to get $1,200 back on $8,000-$10,000, so the limits really kick in.

In terms of fees one thing that always gets mentioned is the item numbers. Items such as 011 (first exam), 012 (periodic exam), 114 (clean), etc. Then you need to ask each dentist what they charge.

In addition, if you do have extras cover, some health funds have preferred suppliers where they have special arrangements. For example, for preferred suppliers, our health fund will cover the full cost of the regular preventative treatment such as examination, clean and any x-rays. If using a non-preferred supplier, you would only get 60% back, although there's some confusion as to whether this is 60% of the scheduled fee, or 60% of what is paid. So far as long as you're within your yearly limit, it looks like it's 60% of what is charged.

The additional problem with trying new dentists is the unknown, and in some cases extra cost. For example, using your current dentist means the exam is a periodic exam (item 012). Using a new dentist means a first exam (item 011) which is more expensive. Makes sense. The new dentist has to start the check from scratch.

One thing that is really disconcerting is many dental practices seem to deliberately avoid sharing the dentist's background. Some private practices are more than happy to publish at least some of the dentists' backgrounds, whilst other private practices however publish little more than a name. Doesn't quite make sense. You have no idea how experienced the dentist is. A recent experience at a new practice I attended locally showed just how much discomfort an inexperienced dentist can inflict. Came out with a headache and a sore mouth for days. Not going back there. It was free but cost dearly in other ways. I don't know, but perhaps some corporate dental groups hire less experienced dentists to perhaps reduce costs. Not really sure what's going on, but something doesn't quite make sense.

All I can do as a consumer is to check out each dentist until I find a dentist I am happy with, that charges fees I am happy with.

One site I found recently helped make sense of the item numbers and schedule fees. Now at least I have some starting information. That site has gone but here's another one. Just search for Dental Fee Schedule if the link doesn't work and you should be able to find something.

Dental services fee schedule | WorkSafe Victoria

All new posts for Speed Camera Locations will now be on the Speed Camera Locations News section.

It seems to me that Google's Blogger days are number. The amount of traffic Google is sending to my Blogger blogs has dropped significantly from the good old days. In fact comparing October 2023 to October 2024 the Blogger traffic is down roughly 80%. Google is just not giving Blogger any love any more. For this reason, I've decided to move News posts for the Speed Camera Locations site back under the Speed Camera Locations site rather than use Blogger.

Based on observing my other sites, it is hope this will mean more people will get to find and read the News posts. It does however mean people won't be able to comment on the posts, but there's always trade-offs in life. Should you wish to leave a comment please leave comments on my YouTube channel.

Kelvin Eldridge

www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au

Save money using Coles and Woolworths apps to check if your favourite items are on special

As an IT person I started to think about writing a program that would interrogate the Coles and Woolworths sites and let me know when my favourite items are on special. But then I wondered, perhaps the Coles and Woolworths apps already do this and yes, they do. No programming required.

All you need to do is to create a list of your favourite items that you buy when they go on special, in each of the apps.

Then each week (specials come out once a week on Wednesdays in Melbourne) just bring up the list and you can see if the item is on special. I did this recently whilst at the shopping centre and saved around $30 buying the items on special. No special trip, just buy the specials when I'm already out.

It is said that a lot of people only buy items when they go on special, and I am certainly one of those people. I nearly always buy cereal when it's half price and there's a few other items that aren't worth buying unless they're on special.

Now I have an easy way to check if items I only usually by when they're on special.

Thanks Coles and Woolworths.

Kelvin

House retailer prices online different from in-store prices

I don't understand why retailers have an online price and an in-store price. The problem is you check online and then go into the store and buy the item, to only later realise it wasn't the price you expected. Once you know however, you can check the price online and the retailer will usually match the online price.

For example, House (www.House.com.au) has the following item online with a 44% discount.

However, if you buy the same item in-store and don't mention the online price, you get a different discount and a higher end price as can be seen in the following receipt. It appears the discount in-store was 25%.

The moral to the story is always check the online price even if you're in the store, before making the purchase. If there's a price difference, ask for a price match and it will end up saving you some money.

Kelvin

Truck driver has $1636 fine overturned. The question is why?

I've seen the articles about a fuel truck driver who was cut off by another truck driver in NSW and was fined $1,636. The reason is they were caught by a Safety T-cam at a distance of about 15.99m from the truck in front.

At first glance it is really rough if someone cuts you off and you get a fine. However, if you inspect the video and Google maps, you have to wonder why the fine was dismissed. In fact, the headline for the article was "Common sense prevails – truck driver has $1636 fine overturned in court - Big Rigs".

https://youtube.com/watch?v=B1NLW1Awvkk&si=ehZqTBi3F37urDVe

Unless I'm missing something, and I could easily be missing something, to me the measurements don't add up.

If you check Google maps for this location (-33.54149394495143, 150.16565633916358) you'll see a few things.

The truck was exiting a 40km/h zone with an 80km/h zone coming up. Based on the video which appears to be slowed to half the speed, the truck may have been travelling around 60km/h and accelerating to return to 80km/h. The start of the video is about 245m from the intersection.

The truck in front enters the intersection when this truck was about 145m from the intersection.

According to the NSW government's site, it takes 44m at 40km/h and 90m at 60km/h for a double B truck to stop. That means there's plenty of time for this truck to stop if required.

Further, the location of the Safety T-cam where this truck was pinged 15.99m behind the truck that had cut out, is around 320m from where we can say the truck cutting out was clearly evident and had entered the main road. The intersection is about 173m from the Safety T-cam. That I would think is plenty of time for the trailing truck to have increased the gap between trucks to the required 60m.

Yes, it's a dog of an act to cut others off. It happens to all of us. But that's part of driving on the road.

For me this is a very interesting situation and shows you can be lucky by going to court.

As I said, if I'm missing something I'd like to know.

Kelvin

PS. I'm not fussed the driver of the truck had the fine overturned. In fact, it's their good luck. What interests me is to analyse the situation and learn by what happens to others on the road so I can be a better, more prepared driver. It is said around 18% of deaths on country roads involve trucks and that is disconcerting given the ratio of cars to trucks.

Average speed camera calculation based on person's fine in WA

I find speed cameras interesting. This is the first time I've seen a fine for an average speed camera, so I thought I'd check it out.

. https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2779347

In the post by abbots the fine stated, allowed time 878s and their alleged time was 817s. The section of road was Forrest Hwy s/bound Lake Clifton. They were fined with doing 117km/h where the speed limit is 110km/h. Given the speed limit and the time allowed, this gives us the distance of 26.827 km.

You can find the Lake Clifton PTP camera located here.
https://www.speedcameralocations.com.au/wa/?lat=-32.8951349&lng=115.7137058

The end PTP camera is located in Binningup.
https://www.speedcameralocations.com.au/wa/?lat=-33.1338527&lng=115.7210756

According to Google Maps the distance between these two GPS locations is 26.9km. which shows a close correspondence.

If we then work out what speed the person would need to be going to cover 26.827km in 817s, we get 118.2km/h. It is interesting there's a variation of 1.2 km/h.

The first thing I found interesting was the time is second is what is used to determine if someone is speeding or not. That actually makes sense because the two variable figures that are easily available is the time at the first camera and the time at the second camera. The difference is the time taken to travel the known distance. From the known distance and the time taken their speed can be estimated.

It should also be kept in mind; from what I've read; the distance travelled between the two average speed cameras is the shortest distance. I imagine this to be the line that cuts across lanes on curved sections of the road. If people speed and stay roughly in the same lane and not cut across lanes to use the shortest distance, they're in fact being a slight allowance because the distance is long, so they would take longer to do the distance.

The second thing is if someone is caught driving at 117 km/h, if they needed to slow down for other cars, then their peak speed is going to be quite a bit higher.

When using cameras the government usually provides an allowance, first for error in their equipment and second an unstated tolerance. The tolerance for the equipment is usually 2 o3 km/h or above 100 km/h 2 or 3%. The unstated tolerance might be closer to 6 km/h.

What we can see here is the person was booked for doing 117 km/h on a 110 km/h road so we now know the unstated tolerance is less than 7 km/h. Anyone who still thinks there's a 10% tolerance is probably in for some financial pain.

As more people share their speeding fine stories. the unstated tolerance will become more obvious. Each person has their own driving preference. I use my GPS to let me know the speed and usually drive close to that speed, but ultimately, it is how comfortable I feel the car is for the conditions. Others drive using the speedometer and others tend to drive a little over the speed limit believing they won't get fined, whilst others simply don't seem to care, or don't realise they're speeding. Fines are a way for the government to encourage people to comply.

Fixed and portable average speed cameras usage is growing across Australia so information like this person's fine is good information to know. Hopefully you've found it interesting.

Kelvin

Western Australia mobile safety camera trial results

I find the information published on civic compliance, or in particular not compliance, to be particularly interesting. So that I am able find the information again where I wish to refer to the information I write short articles here and provided a link.

In this case the publication was about the Western Australia mobile safety camera trials. This differs from the east in that the mobile safety cameras used in Western Australia were mobile trailers that included speeding, average speeding, mobile phone and seat belt usage across a range of areas in WA. That gives a good cross section of usage and non-compliance statistics.

Mobile safety camera trial

The summary of results link provides some very interesting results.

There were 384,400 non-compliance incidents out of 8 million vehicles detected, which is around 4.8% of people not complying with the law. That's a bit sad as it tells us that when we're out driving, one in twenty drivers are doing something they shouldn't being doing. The good thing is that 95% or drivers are doing the right thing, or at least the things the government has measured. Dangerous activities such as aggressive driving, dangerous overtaking, tailgating, cutting in too early, cutting out too late, and many other such deliberate or inadvertent activities, shows us there's a level of risk when we drive on the roads that really isn't acceptable but is often impossible to avoid.

Hopefully others will find the results as interesting as I jave.

Kelvin

Coles, Woolworths, Aldi plastic fruit and veggie plastic bags. Which is the biggest?

This size of the supermarket fruit and veggie bags may seem like a strange thing to want to measure but stick with me. I reuse the plastic bags in small rubbish bins. In fact, the recently issued council FOGO bin goes mouldy if I just use the green compostable bag, and I really don't like mould. The FOGO bin has a wide opening meaning many plastic bags won't fit. And don't worry, I remove the plastic bag before putting the green bag and contents into the green waste bin and pop the plastic bag into the rubbish bin. The plastic bag is just to stop the moisture forming in the FOGO bin and the plastic bag does a good job.

Measurements

Measured when flat

Coles 24 cm x 42 cm
Woolworths 10 cm x 50.5 cm
Adli 9.5 cm x 49.5 cm

Measured the width of the opening

Aldi 37 cm
Woolworths 38 cm
Coles 35 cm

The length of the bag is important to compare with the length of the bin or the item you may place in the bag. For example, I often put shoes in the bag when travelling. For a bin though it needs to reach the bottom. My small rubbish bin is 30 cm high with a diameter of 22 cm, so all bags are suitable, but the Coles bag just fits.

Keep in mind the width of the opening of the bag needs to be compared to the circumference of a round bin, or the perimeter of the square or rectangular bin. Double the width of the opening and then compare this to the perimeter or circumference of the bin.

For example, our round bin has a diameter of 22 cm. That's a circumference of 2 x pi x 11 or roughly 69 cm. Double the opening of the Coles bag and you get 70 cm, which makes for a good fit. The Aldi and Woolworths bags are a more comfortable fit.

The FOGO bin is a weird shape with curved corners. That best way to measure the perimeter is to use a string which gave me 79 cm. We can half this, which is 39.5cm and compare this to the bag widths. In all cases the bags are not big enough, but they do stretch. The best bag for the FOGO bin is the Woolworths bag. The Coles bag won't fit at all. The Aldi bag is a very tight fit making it quite difficult to get off.

Now if you're not into measuring things, just get the three bags when you visit the supermarkets next and try each one for the bins you use.

Kelvin