Crackdown on whiplash injury claims

REFORM of the car whiplash injury claim system “cannot come soon enough”, the AA said today. Whiplash injury claims cost insurers more than £2 billion last year, adding around £90 to the cost of a typical car insurance policy, the AA said. The comments came as ministers hosted a motor insurance summit in London, with the Government expected to outline measures to “weed out” false claims. The measures could include proposals to tackle “questionable” medical evidence and encourage insurance companies to challenge dubious claims. The AA said that over the past two years, claims for whiplash injury contributed to the biggest car insurance premium increases ever recorded. * Tulisa Contostavlos has usurped Rosie Huntington-whiteley and Cheryl Cole to be named the world’s sexiest woman. The X Factor judge, 23, who recently hit the headlines when a sex tape appeared online showing her sharing an “intimate moment” with a former boyfriend, tops the annual FHM list. Two-time winner Cole takes second place, “People who are terribly opinionated, particularly some of the girls on the radio. I think it is their stern voices that I don’t like” - DJ Tony Blackburn on what turns him off. “We must take care. There may be another war. The Germans will try again given another chance. A Kraut is a Kraut is a Kraut. And the only good Kraut is a dead Kraut” - Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore. “What do you mean ‘If ’?” - BBC chairman Lord Patten’s reported response when asked to contribute to Prospect magazine’s If I Ruled The World column. “I never smoked but according to politically correct medical opinion I should be dead from passive smoking. I worked for years as an airline pilot on a flight deck where everyone else smoked” “I call this process weeding my garden” - American Beauty star Mena Suvari on her decision to file for divorce from her concert promoter husband Simone Sestito. “Obviously Simon Cowell has love bites on his mirror” - Writer Kathy Lette.