Car Insurance. Uninsured Cars To Be Crushed
After a long, drawn-out court battle, the final decision has been reached: cars without car insurance will be crushed.
This is not just to punish those drivers who have refused to buy car insurance since it became mandatory in 2012 — it's also an effort to ensure that uninsured cars don't cause accidents and end up putting more innocent people at risk.
The decision was made by the European Court of Justice earlier this week, and is becoming law across the entirety of Europe. It means that when police catch an uninsured driver on the road, they can immediately force them off of their vehicle without issuing a traffic violation or taking them into custody. The vehicle will be impounded for a period of six months by the authorities, and then it will be crushed.
This means that insurance companies have an incentive to keep track of those who refuse to pay, and to make sure that they either pay up or get the car off of their hands. It also means that the driver has a good reason to buy insurance — otherwise, they'll lose their car.
While there's not much in the way of statistics about uninsured drivers on the road, we can guess where these drivers come from; after all, there are many reasons why people wouldn't want to get insurance in Europe before this law was issued.
The main problem is that car insurance costs a lot of money. In most cases, the policy will be mandatory and the driver won't have control over the cost or the quality of their insurance policy. On top of this, for drivers who live in areas with large populations, it's possible that their premiums are being raised simply because they live in an area with higher than average amounts of traffic and potential accidents. In addition to this, some drivers simply don't have enough money to buy insurance — especially when you consider that inflation has been out of control over the past five years.
This entire legal battle was instigated by a woman named Brigitte Bardot, who lives in France and refused to get insurance because she had "lost her faith in the companies." She then used her position as a lawyer to put a message out to the public — essentially saying that she'd refuse to pay. However, the court did rule that her decision was not an individual one; she can't use it as grounds for refusing to buy insurance.
We will now see what effect this has on the numbers of uninsured drivers in Europe. In addition, we'll be able to see how long it takes insurers and policy holders alike to comply with these new regulations. We'll update you on those numbers when they're available.
Sources: Eurozine, BBC News, BBC News (Video), European Court of Justice, NKDattorneys.com (Image)
Title: 50 Shades Of Grey Makes It To #1 On The New York Times Best Selling List
By: Claire Bernish at http://www.activistpost.com/2015/11/50-shades-of-grey-moves-up.html?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=facebook
Earlier this week, a tell-all book written by former Baltimore Police Detective, Michael A. Wood Jr., titled, The Ethical Law Enforcement Code of Conduct, hit the shelves — and immediately made a splash in the mainstream media.
It's a small reminder that there are those who are working outside of the box to affect change within police departments across our country and around the world — but that's not why we're here today.
Despite being released on October 6th, up until Wednesday afternoon, The Ethical Law Enforcement Code of Conduct had yet to reach #1 on Barnes & Nobles' Nook Bestseller list for law enforcement books.
The Ethical Law Enforcement Code of Conduct, written by retired Baltimore police detective Michael A. Wood Jr., and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group did reach #1 on December 10th — knocking former President Bill Clinton's book, back and Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy from the top spot — but not without controversy.
To wit, in order to accomplish the #1 ranking, Wood's book was given a less-than-enthusiastic 5-star rating by one reviewer — prolific Amazon reviewer Dallas Jane.
Dallas Jane, though claiming to be an author herself (or at least a friend of an author) with a book titled The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair — which she claimed was released on October 6th as well — bestowed the glowing review of Wood's book with four out of five stars in its first appearance on Amazon.com.
Strangely enough, that same review doesn't appear on either Barnes & Noble or Goodreads' sites for The Ethical Law Enforcement Code of Conduct. However, you can view it here .
But the dubious ranking didn't end there, oh no.
Within two days of its release, the book had garnered a whopping five-star rating by 14 reviewers. And on the heels of Dallas Jane's review — as if in spite — Google+ user, Daniel J. Lewis , gave the book a one-star review … which was then followed by five more one-star reviews posted between 1:30 and 3:45 am that same night . A mere twelve hours later, Lewis' single star review was followed by nine additional one-star reviews from various names , three of which posted within minutes of each other .
In just two days, Michael Wood Jr. had gone from a must-read to a must-avoid at all costs. And the reasons? It was posted during the most popular time of day for Amazon reviewers, and it was given five out of five stars by Dallas Jane — a reviewer who clearly had an axe to grind.
In short, Michael Wood Jr.'s book, The Ethical Law Enforcement Code of Conduct , is now at the center of something quite unlike any other success story ever before — if you'll excuse the pun.
But what's even more unusual about this particular success story is that Michael Wood Jr.'s book didn't go viral on the Internet. It didn't go viral like Kim Kardashian's selfies or dolphin love.
Conclusion
This is what happens when a book is ranked by an "author" who has an agenda, a social media following, and apparently enough spare time to try to ruin the success of another person's work — and hurt another person's reputation — all just because they feel like it.
There's no mention of Wood's book on Facebook, Twitter, or Goodreads, yet Dallas Jane has more than 10,000 followers on Goodreads alone — which means she can have potentially thousands of people read her blog post about Wood's book.