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With an average age of 13 years and 11 months, up 5.1% compared to last year, Calabria’s car fleet is increasingly older, so much so that the age of vehicles in the region is the second highest in Italy, on a par with Sicily. The data comes from the study carried out by Facile.it on a sample of over 215 thousand car insurance estimates collected in the last year*. Yet, despite older and less reliable cars, many motorists still choose to travel without roadside assistance coverage; in Calabria they are more than 4 out of 10 (44.8%).
Eleven million motorists remained stranded
The age of the car fleet is a phenomenon that affects the entire Peninsula (12 years and 2 months is the average age at a national level) and the risks of using an older vehicle have been certified by a recent survey that Facile.it commissioned from the EMG research institute, which revealed that in the last year 11.7 million Italian motorists were left stranded by their car.
The main problems
The most common failure was a flat battery, an unexpected event that left 4.9 million motorists stranded in the last year alone. Another very frequent accident is a tire puncture, which has ruined the plans of 3.4 million drivers.
Fortunately, less common, but still present in the list, are brake (4%), engine (3.3%) or electrical control unit (3.1%) failures, which left a total of 3.7 million motorists stranded. It must be said that the vehicle was not always responsible; for more information, ask the approximately 580 thousand Italians who have been abandoned by their car because… it ran out of fuel.
How they were solved
Faced with this type of problem, 38% of motorists (equal to 4.2 million Italians) had to take the car to the mechanic, 27% (almost 3 million) asked a family member or friend for help, while 17% (1.8 million) repaired the fault themselves.
Things went worse (at least economically) for the 985 thousand motorists who had to have a mechanic intervene on site and the 2.6 million who resorted to a tow truck, covering out of their own pocket, in addition to the damage, also the cost of the intervention for a total expense which, on average, was equal to 165 euros just to move the broken down car.
As mentioned, there are still many motorists without insurance coverage that protects them from inconveniences of this type, despite a low average cost equal, according to the analysis by Facile.it, to just 32 euros per year.
«Roadside assistance is an additional guarantee that must be added to the basic car insurance and provides a series of useful services in case of emergencies on the road. These range from sending a tow truck to tow the vehicle to the workshop, to on-site repairs, from the replacement vehicle to overnight stay costs if the insured is away from home and the vehicle cannot be repaired quickly”, explain the experts at Facile.it.