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Comment by nrook | Hacker News Reader

I do think insurance is probably the right tool if you want people with more dangerous vehicles to have to pay more. However, the limits are too low. I live in New York, which requires insurance of up to $50,000[1] for the death of a person involved in an incident. However, most lives are worth more than $50k. If the requirement was insurance up to $10 million here instead, you would find the safety of cars constraining the market a lot more, and people wouldn't be able to get away with the kinds of externalities they do now.

[1] https://dmv.ny.gov/insurance/insurance-requirements

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The problem is that the country is dug too deep in a hole where driving is cheap, communities are sprawling, and public transport is a luxury. If a state actually mandated $10m liability, we'd probably see skyrocketing rates of uninsured drivers as a result. Or at least, skyrocketing more than they already are.

Worse, public transportation is seen as poor people's transportation.

>> If the requirement was insurance up to $10 million

Hardly anyone has assets of $10 million, so they do not have the assets to insure. Many people do not even have assets of $50k, so again, why would they need insurance? If they get a judgement against them for $50k, they are bankrupt. That's what bankruptcy laws are for.

If your life is worth $10 million, you need to be the one to insure it for $10 million. Not the working class person who has no assets.

I see forced purchases of insurance for people with nothing to insure as similar to debtor's prison. Obviously not as extreme, but the same concept.

> I see forced purchases of insurance for people with nothing to insure as similar to debtor's prison

That's probably because you're looking at it entirely wrong.

The third-party cover in insurance is not for you (the driver), it's for the poor sod that you turn into a pavement stain.

If you kill them, their family has had someone taken away from them - would you be happy with $50K for the loss of a spouse?

If you don't kill them, but inflict life-changing injuries, the resulting lifetime healthcare costs could easily be more than $50K.

When you take to the road, you do incur some risk, but on average you pose more of a risk to others, particularly if you've chosen to drive a car that you can't see in front of properly.

The UK introduced compulsory third-party cover in 1988. Even back then, the cap was £250,000 - it's not led to any societal problems (although, the accident rate in the UK is far, far lower than in the US so policies probably are going to be cheaper).

I do agree, though, that 10 mil is definitely pushing it a bit far.

>> would you be happy with $50K for the loss of a spouse?

If that was an issue for me, I would make sure that I had the appropriate level of insurance for that event, rather than relying on the hope that some random driver on the streets where I live would have the appropriate level of insurance. Many of the drivers where I live have no license, the cars they are driving aren't registered, and they have no insurance.

That's a law enforcement issue (they don't enforce laws here either), not an civil one. The insurance thing is my responsibility.

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