Car Insurance

Funny Car racer Scotty Cannon, who recently announced his intentions to field a Pro Mod car next season, will not be a part of Don Schumacher Racing in 2004.

“I’d rather own a little country convenience store than be an assistant manager at a big-city supermarket,” Cannon said. “I don’t fit in here. I need to have my own team and be in control J of my stuff. Financially, the only thing I can afford to run now is Pro Mod.

With Cannon’s departure, Schumacher isn’t sure whether he will keep a third Funny Car or switch to a configuration of two Funny Cars, two Top Fuel dragsters, and two Pro Stock Bikes.

“We’ll be making some big announcements on that during the SEMA Show in early November,” Schumacher said. “In the meantime, we’ll continue to work toward filling the hole Scotty will leave. I’ve got a couple of drivers in mind. If we end up keeping three Funny Cars, I want to hire John Force. If we end up with a second dragster, we’re looking at Larry Dixon. How’s that for silly-season gossip?”

Cannon has said that he is “wide open” to offers for another Funny Car ride.

The Extreme-G series has certainly had its ups and downs since its debut on N64 in 1997. But with XGRA, the racing franchise has finally come into its own and can now be counted alongside games like F-Zero and Wipeout as one of the futuristic-racing genre’s defining titles.

It’s not that XGRA does anything particularly unique—it’s just that the game is so thoroughly polished. You turn it on and everything feels right; the music, graphics, and even the menu system all complement each other perfectly. And the little touches—like the sound effects going completely silent when you reach a track’s zero-grav area—really add to the whole experience.

The racing itself is superfast, with twists and turns that get on you faster than Anna Nicole Smith on a Big Mac. But the control is so tight that it takes only a bit of practice to deal with the ridiculously high speeds and technical tracks. The only problem I had was with targeting and destroying specific competitors, but I could feel myself getting better at it the more I played. And there’s nothing wrong with having to build your skills up a little bit, right?

My only real complaint about XGRA is that too few bikes compete in each race. The way the game is now, you don’t get the feeling of racing in a pack. The inclusion of a bunch more racers would add a whole new dimension to an otherwise excellent experience.

The Extreme-G series has certainly had its ups and downs since its debut on N64 in 1997. But with XGRA, the racing franchise has finally come into its own and can now be counted alongside games like F-Zero and Wipeout as one of the futuristic-racing genre’s defining titles.

It’s not that XGRA does anything particularly unique–it’s just that the game is so thoroughly polished. You turn it on and everything feels right; the music, graphics, and even the menu system all complement each other pefectly. And the little touches–like the sound effects going completely silent when you reach a track’s zero-grav area–really add to the whole experience.
The racing itself is superfast, with twists and turns that get on you faster than Anna Nicole Smith on a Big Mac. But the control is so tight that it takes only a bit of practice to deal with the ridiculously high speeds and technical tracks. The only problem I had was targeting and destroying specific competitors, but I could feel myself getting better at it the more I played. And there’s nothing wrong with having to build your skills up a little bit, right?

My only real complaint about XGRA is that took few bikes compete in each race. The way the game is now, you don’t get the feeling of racing in a pack. The inclusion of a bunch more racers would add a whole new dimension to an otherwise excellent experience.

FTER THE 2002 WINSTON CUP season began with two different reactions to late-race crashes–officials waved the red flag in Daytona but allowed the next week’s race, in Rockingham, to end under a yellow flag–controversy overtook safety as the series buzzword.

Controversy is nothing new in Winston Cup, but in this case it was perpetuated, if not created, by the series’ inconsistencies and willingness to bend, if not break, its laws whenever it sees fit.

To be fair, in one case the crash affected the outcome more than race officials could have known. Daytona’s late crash offered then-leader Sterling Marlin the opportunity to make a mistake–exiting and working on his car during the delay–that forced officials to banish him to the back of the pack.

Possibly because of that fallout, in Rockingham there was no red flag, and fans yawned as Matt Kenseth sailed across the finish–in front of Marlin.

Further exposing NASCAR’s ineffectiveness regarding the interpretation of the rulebook, in the season’s third race in Las Vegas, a penalty was enforced on every driver–except Marlin, who apparently had already reached his season quota of bad breaks. Unfortunately, instead of embracing consistency, NASCAR seemingly prefers leaving its drivers shrugging their shoulders and having to find consolation that these sorts of things will even themselves out over the course of the season

After the Rockingham race, there inexplicably were calls for more racing instead of more consistency. Obscuring its own errors with potential rule changes, NASCAR officials were swayed to consider adopting some form of overtime for Winston Cup races, most likely similar to the “green-flag rule.” That rule–used, among other circuits, by NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series–dictates that a race must end with at least two laps of green-flag racing. This ignores that an overtime period is enacted to break deadlocks when an athletic contest has no winner. This is not the case in Winston Cup races–the outcome is not in doubt–and giving drivers the chance to make up for caution flags at the end of a race but at no other time makes little sense.

Even worse, it could prove dangerous. Purposefully causing a crash in order to buy time for a hard-charging teammate should hardly be a worry–drivers are competitive, not stupid–but bunching cars up at the end of the race with the results on the line can create some needlessly aggressive driving. NASCAR is considering trading a potentially drab finish for a potentially dangerous scrum. This does not seem smart.

Plus, drivers are making late-race decisions–most importantly, when to refuel–on the basis of running a set number of miles. The best drivers are squeezing everything they can out of their car within a set number of miles. Some elements of strategy, not to mention talent, would be threatened by running unscheduled laps.

The series can’t be accused of not giving the people what they want, but more racing would change the entire rhythm of a race–and may punish drivers more than reward fans.

MAYFIELD VILLAGE, Ohio — People may think they’re being clever when they try to cheat insurance companies, but often they end up making mistakes that get them caught, injured and sometimes even killed.

The Progressive group of insurance companies, the third-largest auto insurer in the country, says while the escapades of people who commit fraud can be amusing, insurance fraud is a serious crime that costs consumers a lot of money. The National Insurance Crime Bureau estimates that property and casualty insurers pay more than $30 billion a year in bogus claims - costs which are generally passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums.
“People think of insurance fraud as a victimless crime when, in fact, honest policyholders end up being victimized,” said Ray Albertini, Progressive’s national director of special investigations. “Most insurance companies base their rates on the cost of doing business. When costs go up because of fraudulent claims, other customers end up paying the price. People need to be aware of fraud and be willing to report it when they suspect it.”

Albertini says it can be tough to catch the offenders, but sometimes they make it very easy, such as in these –You never know who might be listening. One fairly common type of fraud people commit is buying coverage after their car’s been damaged. What’s less common is when they buy it from the scene of the accident. Take the case of the motorcyclist who wiped out and, while lying on the side of the road with a ruptured spleen, had the presence of mind to call 1-800-PROGRESSIVE to buy coverage. What he didn’t know was that a witness who saw the accident also heard him make the call. In another case, a couple’s car caught on fire. While the husband was on the phone with Progressive buying a policy, his wife was overheard yelling in the background that the car was about to explode.

–When you play with fire, expect to get burned. Some people figure the easiest and quickest way to collect insurance money is to destroy their car by setting it on fire. Not necessarily. Consider the case of two brothers who were hired to set a car on fire. They doused it with gasoline, and to make sure the vehicle would be completely destroyed, they decided to throw in a pipe bomb. The bomb exploded, setting one of the men on fire. He was likely killed instantly from the explosion, but his brother, not realizing that, rushed to extinguish the flames and ended up catching on fire. He ran toward a nearby highway for help and flagged down a state trooper who had come to investigate the black cloud of smoke. The man told the trooper what he and his brother had done and then, like his brother, passed away from his injuries.

–What’s wrong with this picture? A customer said some parts were stolen from his car, and to support his claim, he submitted what appeared to be phony invoices along with Polaroid photos. At first blush the photos looked pretty good, but something seemed a little odd about them. On closer inspection, investigators realized the guy had taken extreme close-ups of a toy car that was the same color and make of his actual car. The customer eventually admitted he took photos of the toy car in an attempt to get his claim paid.

–Miracle cure? A passenger riding in a customer’s car was injured in a crash and needed chiropractic treatment. No problem. The customer’s insurance covered it. However, sometime before completing the prescribed series of doctor visits, the passenger died of unrelated, natural causes. Now, you’d think that a person who is deceased would no longer benefit from a doctor’s care, but evidently, the chiropractor thought otherwise. He continued to bill for treatment for a full month after the patient’s death.

–That’s gonna leave a mark. A woman decided to take her boyfriend’s motorcycle for a ride. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to drive and crashed it. Luckily, she wasn’t injured. The man, however - afraid his insurance wouldn’t cover the damage to his motorcycle because his girlfriend wasn’t listed as a driver on his policy - decided to pretend that he had crashed the motorcycle. He figured he needed some injuries to make his story credible, so he tied himself to the back of a truck and asked a friend to drag him around a little bit to produce the road rash he would have gotten from the wreck. Well, he got the injuries he wanted, but they didn’t do him any good. His girlfriend told investigators that in fact it was she who crashed the motorcycle.

“People may laugh at some of these incidents, but what they need to realize is that people who commit fraud are taking money out of everyone else’s pockets,” said Progressive’s Albertini.

Albertini leads Progressive’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which aggressively investigates and prosecutes fraud to help keep car insurance costs down for consumers. Progressive’s SIU has 258 professionals throughout the country who work with law enforcement agencies, the National Insurance Crime Bureau, and state Departments of Insurance to track down and prosecute people who commit insurance fraud.