Thatcham’s cloak of safety

Thatcham is the name of a nasty little town in a nasty little county called Berkshire.

It’s also the name by which one of its largest residents – the Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre – is commonly known.

The centre was set up in the 60s to carry out research into cutting the cost of insurance claims. And that’s exactly what it still does today.

Recently though Thatcham has worked hard to imply that they’re about something more noble. They’re an independent safety body, working tirelessly to force evil car makers to stop killing so many people.

It’s a quiet and cynical re-branding in which the name of the organisation is all-important.

To distance themselves for those paying the mortgage, Thatcham has happily dropped all reference to ‘insurance’, instead adopting the name of its home town.

Serious money has also been pumped into establishing safety credentials.
On-site TV studios, for example, churn out regular GMTV-fodder; simulated crashes, or images of kid-sized test dummies, limbs a-flailing in the back seats of cars.

Most worryingly though, Thatcham have got real cosy with safety consortium EuroNCAP. And now we learn that they are to be a test house for NCAP’s new whiplash programme. Good news? It certainly is for insurers.

Andrew Millar, Thatcham research director summed it up nicely: “Whiplash work is one of our key activities as we strive to reduce the very heavy burden on society and insurers caused by this common accidental injury.”

Here’s some news about the burden of whiplash. It’s the most common personal injury claim, costing insurers around £1.5bn annually.

Yet for most victims, it amounts to nothing more than a bit of transient neck pain.

Remember that in November when you see Thatcham playing the safety card on telly, crash-test dummies sliding down their new “Hyper G Sled”, a £1 million bit of equipment.

All paid for by insurers.