Colombia Automotive

Car insurance protects you against any financial loss that may happen due to an accident or theft of your car. It is a car insurance company that issues car insurance to you. A car insurance company will work up a car insurance policy for you after evaluating the various options like the make of your car, the premium that you are willing to pay, your insurance risk, etc. A yearly premium has to be paid by you to the car insurance company so that the company can pay for your loses that you may bear in the future. All the terms and conditions are mentioned in the contract and it is your duty as a car owner to look over all the points and ask the insurance agent any questions that you have in mind. It is only after all the terms and conditions are clear to you that you should sign on the dotted line and pay the premium.

Normally all car insurance companies have the same insurance policies. The premium to be paid and the percentage of losses to be covered in case of any accident may vary slightly. Since the car insurance market is very competitive, the premium rates and other terms and conditions almost remain the same.

A car insurance policy may provide property, liability and coverage depending on the type of policy. The property coverage covers losses for damage of the car or the theft of the car. Liability coverage pays for any legal liabilities to other people for bodily harm or property damage. And medical coverage covers expenses for treating injuries, medicine expenses and funeral expenses in case of a car accident. You may buy the different types of coverage depending on how much you want to spend on your policy.

A car insurance policy usually consists of 6 types of coverage. As mentioned before a customer can select from the different types of coverage. Most of the car policies last from 6 months to a year. Your car insurance company will bill you when it is time to renew your policy and be prepared for a rate hike.

The different types of coverage are :-

1) Bodily Injury Liability

This type of liability covers the expenses of injuries that you may cause to someone else while driving your car. Also the coverage includes injuries caused to a person while driving other person’s car.

2) Medical Payments and Personal Injury Protection

This type of liability covers the expenses for the treatment of injuries to drivers and other passengers. The liability also covers medical expenses and funeral expenses in the case of death.

3) Property Damage Liability

This type of liability covers for damage to the other person’s car and your car. It may also include damage to lamp posts, telephone poles, fences and other public property.

4) Collision

This type of liability covers expenses for damage to your car or the other person’s car. Even if you are at fault, then also you will be reimbursed for the expenses of repairing the car.

5) Comprehensive

This liability covers loses due to theft or damage to the car by something other than collision with another object or damage to the car due to fire, falling objects, explosion, earthquake, etc.

6) Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage

This liability covers damages to your car by another driver who is uninsured.

The coverages mentioned above are offered by all car insurance companies. In almost all states, car insurance is mandatory. Therefore, it is your responsibility as a car driver to have a policy.

It is a very common occurence. We see then every day. Its like a disease – yellow, cloudy headlight lenses. I even saw them on cars at the local carwash. It befuddled me that these people would take such great care – washing, vacuuming the interior, removing the floor mats and even hand drying their cars, but they still had those yellowed, cloudy headlights. Its not just a problem on old, very used cars. It is prevalent on 2 – 3 year old cars also. It doesn’t matter if it is a Dodge, Ford, Mercedes, or a Porsche.

When questioned, most said they couldn’t afford, or didn’t want to pay the high prices of replacements from their local auto dealer. The average price for a pair of replacement plastic headlights at local auto dealerships was around $450 – that didn’t even include installation and alignment (that would be another $60-120). Aftermarket headlights do exist, but have received mixed reviews, and the savings aren’t that great, quality and fit is lagging, and then you still had to have them installed and aligned. And for what so you can do it again in another year or two?

There is another solution, there is a patented headlight cleaner and restorer kit. Its under $20, much less expensive than replacement lenses, and it works!

Plastic headlight lenses are the norm in the automotive industry now – every car has them. Some have fancy names like plexan and Lexan, but they all have the same problems. The sun, acid rain, harsh weather conditions, chemicals (brake fluid, power steering fluid, hot radiator fluids, hot water, harsh cleaners, etc…) will all cause the plastic lenses to degrade and weaken quickly. Some manufacturers have gone to including a protective film on the lenses. Regardless, they are all susceptible to this weakening and yellowing over time.

With this headlight cleaner and restorer even junk yard car lenses have been restored to brand new. These same lenses used to be discarded and now have become new profit centers for salvage yards all over. The treatment is applied to the exterior of the headlight lens where the damage is worst and it doesn’t take a mechanic to do it.

It is easy to do, doesn’t take very long, and the results are fantastic. So there is a very economic solution to the problem of yellow, cloudy, worn headlights. There’s no excuse now to not have sparkling clean headlights. Car dealerships everywhere are using headlight cleaner and restorer on their cars and you can too.

At round these years, commercial enterprise such as stores, retail outlets, gas stations and banks started applying Video Surveillance Equipment for a surveillance technique to amend occupation protection. There are some reasons why you should have video surveillance equipment in your work place. The first base reason you require video surveillance equipment is since the menace is substantial in businesses. The U.S Chamber of Commerce reports that an employee is 15 times more potential than a nonemployee to sneak from an employer. Further, 75% of employee-related law-breakings go overlooked.

Another reason for having video surveillance equipment is to be purposed as a preventive from both outside and inside stealers. Those willing to sneak will go for the easy money, but accepting a camera viewing them will drive them frighten by getting grabbed. The final reason to have video surveillance equipment is because it does work. Statistics prove that less than 10% of the employee population is causative for more than 95% of the total releases from employee stealing. Owning video surveillance equipment could support you keep apart the few masses that are thieving from your company, therefore you are able to get fast action to cut down the deficit by stealing rapidly as well as recollect the stocktaking already missed

Before starting your brochure collection, in my view it is best to have a very clear idea about what you want to achieve.

The reason for collecting is not important, but knowing the reason is. Are you interested in a particular period in history, a particular car, type of car or brochures from a particular country, for example?

Once you have decided what the purpose of your collection is, write it down or print it out and keep it with all the items you collect.

Why should you do this, you may ask? The reason is that this will keep you focussed on what you are trying to achieve and stop you going off at tangents or pursuing avenues that are fruitless.

With the advent of the Internet, it is so easy to see an item on eBay or a website such as mine and buy on a whim. This will detract from your overall collection as there will be no theme to it and therefore it will be worth less both as a source of reference and value wise.

Also, there are very few people who do not have a budget and every “off topic” brochure you buy will reduce the amount of money you could spend on building and completing your collection.

If you adopt this approach, very soon you will find yourself becoming expert at valuing and sourcing the brochures that interest you. This will help you avoid paying more than necessary for that “so-called” rare brochure and allow you to spot undervalued bargains. With a subject as broad as brochure collecting, it is impossible to be an expert on the whole market and probably even on, for example, all Ford brochures. If you will excuse the pun, Focus!

By using this method you will also build a network of dealers or friends with a common interest who will become invaluable in helping you fill gaps in your collection by way of swaps or trade…a benefit that cannot be underestimated and as someone once said, “it is not what you know, but who you know”.

The scattergun approach is simply a waste of effort. Do not do it!

Next week I will be discussing what to look for when buying brochures and critically, what to avoid!

A new national poll released by PACWEST Communications of Portland, Oregon shows Americans overwhelmingly favor gaining access to American oil and gas from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, known as ANWR.

In the face of soaring gasoline prices pushed by crude oil prices hitting $75 per barrel, nearly 60 percent of those questioned said they favor oil production in ANWR.

“These are very strong results,” said Paul Phillips, PACWEST’s president. “Congress has failed previously in numerous attempts to pass legislation opening ANWR’s vast oil and gas reserves. Hopefully, they will now be more responsive to the will of the people and address the people’s energy needs.”

On numerous occasions, the powerful environmental lobby has defeated attempts to open ANWR, claiming that production there would harm the environment. However, as Phillips points out, it had no such qualms when the Clinton administration proposed oil production on another section of Alaska’s North Slope.

In fact, Mr. Clinton’s Department of Energy published an extensive report in 1999 entitled “Environmental Benefits of Advanced Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Technology.” That report found, “From the tundra of Alaska to the wetlands of Louisiana, a host of advanced technologies enable the oil and gas industry to produce resources far beneath sensitive environments.”

It describes techniques such as building ice roads for moving equipment that simply disappear without a trace when summer comes to the Arctic and directional drilling that allows many wells to be put down from a single location. These and other techniques would enable the production of oil and gas using just 2,000 of ANWR’s 19,500,000 acres.

Should the Congress vote to open ANWR to oil production, Phillips said, the effect of driving prices down could be immediate, even though actual production would be some years away.

“Much of the price of oil is based on speculation that there will be shortages in the future,” Phillips noted. “Any action which might even slightly lessen such shortages could have a strong impact on prices.”

Opening ANWR could well be just such an action. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated ANWR could hold as much as 16 billion barrels of oil. That is an amount equal to 30 years of imports from Saudi Arabia. Peak production, it is estimated, would yield approximately 1.5 million barrels per day, or about 7.5 percent of this country’s daily usage–enough, according to experts, to impact world prices.

Americans are known for seeking the roads less traveled and, in many cases, continuing to journey even after the road ends. More than 50 million Americans went off-roading in 2005, a 42 percent increase since 2000.

For fans of off-roading, there are two considerations when taking to the dirt and rocks of off-road driving: safety and ecology. Safety starts with having the right equipment-a vehicle that’s designed for uneven, unpredictable terrain and tough, dependable tires that can take the punishment of dirt, rocks, ravines and more. And by following ecological guidelines, you can help ensure that trails will be enjoyable for other adventurers.

Safety Tips

1. Inform someone of where you are going and when you expect to return.

2. Make sure your vehicle has plenty of fuel.

3. Ride at safe speeds for existing conditions.

4. Travel straight up and down hills-never traverse the face of a hill; it may cause your vehicle to slip sideways or roll over.

5. Cross large rocks or other obstacles slowly, at an angle, one wheel at a time.

6. Cross ravines at a 45-degree angle.

7. Only cross streams at a designated fording point.

8. Never turn around on narrow roads, steep terrain or unstable ground.

9. Avoid stopping in tall grass or brush, which can be ignited by engine heat.

10. Reduce tire pressure to improve traction in tough off-road conditions.

It’s the Ecology

1. Drive only where permitted.

2. Keep a trash bag in your vehicle and collect litter left by others.

3. Ride in the middle to minimize the widening of the trail.

4. Avoid slide slipping and wheel spin to prevent erosion.

5. Keep away from wildlife.

6. Steer clear of sensitive habitats: wetlands, meadows, tundra, etc.

7. Clean your vehicle after the ride to reduce the spread of noxious weeds.

8. Observe proper sanitary waste disposal.

Top Trails

To highlight some of the best off-road trails in the country, BFGoodrich Tires, in conjunction with Tread Lightly and United Four Wheel Drive Associations, has launched its Outstanding Trails program. The program is dedicated to the responsible use and preservation of these off-road trails and will aid in the effort to keep these trails sustainable.

“Last year, more than 50 million people sought adventure through recreational off-road driving; the sport is exploding in popularity,” said Kaz Holley, brand director for BFGoodrich Tires. “Each one of the trails highlighted in this program is amazing, and embodies the very best in off-roading. BFGoodrich tires and these Outstanding Trails are very similar in nature-both are tough and both are fun to drive on.”

The program identifies five of North America’s best trails. From desolate desert stretches to towering peaks and rolling hillsides, these trails are unique in toughness and beauty.

After a careful selection process, five of North America’s “outstanding” off-road trails were nominated for uniqueness, terrain type and enthusiast following:

• Black Bear Pass, near Ouray, Colo., is a picturesque trail nestled in the San Juan Mountains.

• Pyeatt Draw, a scenic and exciting trail situated in Payson, Ariz.

• Hell’s Revenge, with its slick sandstone slopes, brings adventure to thrill seekers in Moab, Utah.

• Historic Naches Pass, also known as the Longmire Wagon Train, takes off-road drivers over the Cascade Mountains in Naches, Wash.

• Upper Tellico Trail, Trail #4, located in the Nantahala National Forest, is located in an area where Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia meet.

As a part of the program, BFGoodrich Tires will host several events at designated trails to highlight the uniqueness of each location as well as to educate off-roaders on the responsible use of each trail. The company will also give a grant to a selected off-road club to help with the costs associated with the trails’ conservation.