increasing insurance increases the harm to the poor.
At this point it shouldn't be required by law or it should be subsidized for those for whom it represents an undue burden.
At this point it shouldn't be required by law or it should be subsidized for those for whom it represents an undue burden.
Doubly so if they have "badass offroad cosplay" mods like welded bumpers and lightbars. Yes okay maybe you need that out in the dunes, but if you're playing at that level you should be trailering the warmachine to the dunes and towing it behind something with better visibility. If that tank touches pavement, it should pay the insurance risk commensurate with its armor.
A poor person won't be purchasing a newer vehicle but that has no bearing on the make and model they end up driving.
An SUV with the floor rusted out and leaking oil and no A/C is going to be cheaper to purchase than a used corolla with under 50k miles on it and everything generally working decently.
20-30 y/o SUV's exist, 0 year old corolla's exist. It turns out the size of the vehicle isn't nearly the largest determinant of price for vehicles.
Finally, "accidents" that cause injury or death are treated way too lightly by the justice system. If you kill someone in any other way and get convicted, you're doing hard time in prison. If you kill someone with your car, you might not even get jail time if it was deemed an accident.
1: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/minimum-car-ins...
However, the first dollars of insurance are often the most expensive; so the price to customers going from $50k to $500k may be not as much as even the first $50k was.
IIRC, a VERY low percentage of people who kill a pedestrian are ever even charged (like 3%) with anything. In the vast majority of cases, there is negligence involved and everyone is just like "ok, you killed someone though your own negligences, but turns out there are no consequences for that"???
My stance here is that if you're going to make it required by law, someone needs to subsidize it and I believe it should be the insurance companies.
The low minimums you're complaining about exist specifically because the law is trying to split the difference between requiring insurance and not causing too much harm to those that can't afford it, or can barely afford it.
Here's how insurance works.
I purchase insurance. Someone hits me. My insurance company pays to repair the vehicle and the medical coverage needed (per my insurance policy). They then sue the other party to recoup the money. If it's another insurance company they're typically guaranteed 2 things.
1. The company can afford to pay out
2. The company doesn't want to go to court so gentleman's agreements are made between the insurance company to minimize overhead costs.
If the other party is uninsured they're typically forced to eat the cost because the chances of getting money out of someone who can't afford insurance isn't worth the overhead of even trying.
This is why it's a business risk that the insurance companies have mitigated by getting it required by law.
How did they mitigate it if as said the punishment for not having insurance is not too severe and many people are driving without an insurance? (again as per said above, I have no independent confirmation of this)
Yes, you are reading my message correctly. It was not clear to me.
Now that I am reading your answer I am realising that you did not mean “completely mitigate”, just increase the chances of someone having insurance. That was the core of my misunderstanding.
Thank you for the clarification.
and I'm skeptical that you're a moral human being. Apparently poor people with families don't need larger vehicles the way middle class people with families do.
Your idea is stupid and untenable, let it go.
Hm, surely we don't need to go that far. This is an internet discussion, we're supposed to be nice to each other!
> Apparently poor people with families don't need larger vehicles the way middle class people with families do.
Maybe I don't understand what claim you're making: is it 1) vans/SUVs must not become any more expensive (via higher insurance requirements), or else poor people will be priced out of owning a car entirely, or 2) owning a van/SUV is almost a human right, and raising the barrier to it is immoral?
I've tried looking at listings and I don't see evidence of the claim that somehow poor people are forced to buy SUVs because they're cheaper. There appear to be many big and small cars at every price range.
For 2), huge cars have only been widespread for a decade or two. The idea that they're somehow necessary for a meaningful human life is hard for me to grok.
You're on a crusade against larger vehicles and you think that crusade is more important than avoiding more harm to poor people, to the point that you said they have no need of larger vehicles (with a straight face) so it's ok to place a tax on them that will mean the poor will be forced to forego something as simple as a minivan for their family due to the extra taxes on them.
that's an immoral stance, one that you can only have gotten to because poor people is an abstract idea to you, you don't attribute any humanity to that abstract idea.
What makes it even worse is that you're so far gone you thought my issue with your statement was because I think owning a van or SUV is a human right rather than your entirely cavalier dismissal of the poor as being people.
rethink your strategy, the harm from your current strategy means it will never be implemented.
Also, minivans and vans have been around since the 1930's. Get your facts right.
And you can get what has happened multiple times - when gas prices rise substantially, low-mpg vehicles get dumped on the used market, so you have poor people and kids driving massive boats (the hotrodding scene from the 70s is a direct result of this).