Just give poor people money, instead of a million special programs with extra bureaucracy and red tape.
In /some/ places, car insurance is required by law. How does it work in places where it is not required by law? At first thought, it appears more financially risky to drive! I guess that insurance would be even more expensive because it is more likely that the other side is insured.
Looking this up for the US (the country where I live), it seems that only NH doesn't require car insurance (ninja edit: Virginia as well). So for me, this is an interesting hypothetical, but not in a way that's a part of my reality as I do not live in either of those two states.
>>At first thought, it appears more financially risky to drive!
As someone who does not own a car, and does not drive (and is poor - very poor in HN standards as well as in the city I live in), I would like drivers that I share the road with to have insurance, rather than drive without insurance. Getting hit by an uninsured driver would be an absolute nightmare that I doubt I could even afford to bring to court.
Not sure about the specifics of your car insurance but mine would cover that.
I'm not from Nova Scotia, but we have the same principle of mandatory insurance that has to cover also the accidents caused by people who are violating the requirements, which doesn't add much since the requirements are strictly enforced and violations are not that common, but mitigates those rare cases.
And I know how OP worded their post, but legally in my state you have to have insurance and despite that not every driver actually has insurance. It's not like anyone checks your insurance when you put the keys in the ignition...
Each driving session is statistically independent. The probability of you getting in a vehicle accident resets every time you get behind the wheel. The actual probability in each session varies based on things like your alertness level, vehicle condition, weather conditions, traffic levels, and so on.
Something you can do to reduce your premiums is to shop around every 3-4 years. Most of the big-name insurance companies will start raising your rates around that time-frame because they assume the hassle of changing companies will keep you with them (i.e. human inertia). Another way is to drive "old man" cars. They're usually bigger & heavier, and perform better in accidents than something small & zippy. So they get lower rates because the chance of high medical bills is reduced.
What's your evidence for that?
I'm going to assume you are a reasonably competent driver. Also, that your driving routine is pretty stable. Now these assumptions may not apply to you, but they do apply in general, which is what you need to set insurance risk.
Traffic density on your Wed commute to work is pretty stable week over week, with approximately the same percentage of over-tired or over-stressed drivers.
Your driving ability has probably not significantly improved over the last 6 months.
Thus, your chance of getting into an accident this morning on the way to work is independent of the chance of you having an accident next Wednesday.
Likewise, your chance of getting into an accident this morning is independent of the chance of your co-worker who lives on the other side of town but has a similar risk profile to you of the commute (same type of roads, same distances).
In general, in aggregate. Y
Someone who just had five accidents in the last three weeks might drive differently today, don't you think?
And what good is it trying to sue a “poor person”?
While I never had to sue anyone, I looked into all of the hoops you have to jump through to collect damages when I was a landlord. It wasn’t worth the time or the effort.
The insurance company was going to look into suing the driver, but it's not like there was even enough money there to pay for the lawyers.
They go to covering your risk of loss from damages causes by an actor from whom funds cannot be recovered.
> And what good is it trying to sue a “poor person”?
None, often, that's a large part of what you are insuring against by having uninsured driver insurance.
And in my original comment i was speaking to the nomenclature of "everyone has $1mm liability insurance" rather than anything else. I hadn't eaten all day and it shows in my comment history full of snark and toeing the line of being a decent person.
Because that is what uninsured motorist insurance is for? If you buy flood insurance and it floods…
And I it's great for the wealthy.
Forcing insurance on poor people is not right.
The poor have a tough enough time just keeping their head above homelessness.
I have been required to pay for automotive insurance in California for approximately 20 years. (In CA mandatory insurance was required, but not mandatory forever. There is a weird legal difference. I white knuckled my college years while driving. I got lucky except onetime. A wealthy women slammed into me, and the minute she, or actually her lawyer husband, found out I didn't have insurance, I was putty in their hands. I paid $1000 for an 1982 Volvo bumper. It was the last of my student loan, but they had me. A call to DMV and I wouldn't be able to commute to my school.)
Every year if I want to drive my old truck I needed to come up with $600.00 plus. Even with a perfect record since 15.5 years of age.
I only can afford the minimum. I never made much money even as college graduate. I believe it's 15-30-5. (this means if slam into you and you are a vegetable; you will get $15,000 for injuries, and $5,000 for your Tesla. Great payday? If you have money you can go after my assets.).
My point is it's not enough if we are being honest.
The insurance industry loves these minimum mandates because they make billions off the poor, and middleclass.
It's no wonder the insurance industry is always the number #1 Lobby group on every political fund.
It's a racket, and I believe the bigger boys are colluding on rates, but can't prove it.
"Buy the per mile insurance dude--you low income loser!"
(1. Work out the low income insurance on a yearly basis, and it's not copasetic. Plus my old Toyota does not have a computer other than a rudimentary computer that was suspose to control the main plunger in the naturally aspirated carb that never really worked. Meaning there's no computer to plug a mileage indication in. So there's no per mile insurance I can get.)
My point is mandated insurance is kind of a racket like this two year mandated Smog check, especially on vechicles that that we only use a few times per year, or under 1000 miles/per year.
Rant Over.