Don't let the title mislead you, as I am writing this from Europe, in Montreux Switzerland where I am at IBIS, which is the International Bodyshop Information Symposium. IBIS is an annual conference, where all the trends and technology in the automobile care repair industry are updated. There are delegates from all over the world, which means that people do indeed crash their cars all over the world.
Anyway, what I can tell you from my drive down from England is that Europeans drive much too fast, and their cars are not very big. I would assume that this would translate to a higher total loss percentage, which I was told at dinner that it does. You see, gas is about $10/gallon here, and speed limits are more suggestions than rules, so everyone tries to get wherever they are going very fast. This is the only thing in Europe that happens fast, I believe. They all so have national health coverage and heavily regulated Auto insurance, so when there is an accident at such speeds, basically the car and the driver are totaled more often than not, and everything is paid for by taxpayers.
Ok, this was just dinner chatter. The real conference starts tomorrow, which will provide a wealth of material.
--Ian
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