RAC cost of motoring figures don't add up Putting second-hand cars to one side and focusing on modest, popular, big-selling everyday vehicles that are bought brand new and owned for three years before being sold on the used market, high-quality offerings such as the Skoda Citigo, VW Up and Seat Mii cost as little as 28p per mile to own and run. For slightly bigger cars such as the Ford Fiesta, VW Polo and Kia Rio, think nearer 35ppm. The most common medium-size cars, such as the Ford Focus, Hyundai i30 and Volkswagen Golf, cost about 45ppm. And many huge family saloons/archetypal company cars, such as the Ford Mondeo, the Citroën C5 and the Vauxhall Insignia come in at about 50ppm. But these examples are for cars purchased new. Inevitably, their buying/running costs are much higher because they cost considerably more than used vehicles in the first place. Never forget that car loans (or loss of interest on capital) are significant but often forgotten in ownership/running costs. Another irrefutable truth is that new cars depreciate in value steeply during their first three years of life - and again, new car depreciation is a very real and hugely underrated cost to the motorist who buys new. With the tens of millions of used vehicles on the road (their average age is 7.25 years, says the report), the cost of depreciation is usually far less financially damaging for the vehicle owner. Untold millions of drivers are happily running around in perfectly adequate ageing cars that cost only between about 10-30ppm to own and run. All this makes the RAC's "average" figures of 55.7 pence for every mile driven all the more baffling. Car insurance giant Confused seems precisely that. It claims that the prices that private motorists are now expected to pay to insure their cars are "plummeting." But in the same sentence the company confesses that drivers up to the age of 20 (admittedly, a comparatively small group) are still being quoted comprehensive car insurance premiums of £2,491 on average. Those based in Manchester or Merseyside receive quotes averaging £5,394. I've been arguing for months that the prohibitively high prices being demanded on the Confused website and elsewhere are leading to a generation of young men and women who are being priced off the road and prevented from climbing behind the wheel to gain valuable driving experience. Despite a growing population and more cheap, fuel-efficient small cars on the market than ever before to cater for first-time motorists, driving tests are down by about 200,000 per annum compared with four years ago. Driving is, among other things, an important workplace skill. And it's a skill that youngsters aren't acquiring when in school, college or university and can't afford to acquire after completing full-time education. The obscenely high cost of insuring even low-value cars can be largely thanked for that. According to AA Insurance, extreme weather caused about £35 million of damage to 14,000 cars in the first two weeks of July, hundreds of which have been written off. Over the fortnight since June 28, the company claims that some vehicles have been subjected to "hailstones the size and weight of cricket balls," plus flooding and other attacks from Mother Nature. True, that £35 million referred to is a large amount of money for the insurance business to pay out to motorists who submit claims. But it's only a fraction of the tens of billions that insurers, brokers and others in the industry rake in from the pockets of motorists who are, by law, required to purchase certificates costing at least hundreds and often thousands of pounds a year. Also, I'd argue that there's a market for some of those "write-offs." After all, not everybody cares if a van is peppered with dents caused by hailstones. And on some mean streets and in certain grotty car parks there can be advantages to having a vehicle that is bruised, battered and tatty. Because it won't matter if it is on the receiving end of a few more scratches and scrapes.