Depends where you are - with 11 years no claims, I paid around £500 a year in London on a Volvo v70 2.4 litre, currently paying £230 a year (out of London) for a huge people carrier that also has my wife as a named driver who has only just learnt to drive.

Though yes - insuring 2 cars could be costly - some places offer a multi car discount, some with a device that only charges you when you drive.

This is the case, yes, but generally insurance companies are aware that you can only drive one car at once and adjust premiums appropriately.

That said, in the UK it's hard for me to think of a circumstance in which two cars would be a hard requirement for someone who can't 'afford' a decent car.

Here, you probably live in or close to a city. You might not want to cycle in or get a taxi/bus to work every day, but if your car fails you could probably do that whilst getting another one.

So the second car is only necessary if you live in the country, which is a minority, it's nowhere near as common as the sort of "live 30 miles outside of work with no train station" stuff that happens in the US.

If my car breaks it doesn't really even matter. I use it because it's easier to do big supermarket runs and saves a bit of time here and there; the cost equation works out roughly equivalent to using public transport.

"generally insurance companies are aware that you can only drive one car at once and adjust premiums appropriately."

I'm in the US and that's not my experience. My insurance is fairly cheap, but it did indeed nearly double when I got a second vehicle despite there not being any additional people to drive it.