New Ill.Law Makes Driving Without Proof of Insurance a Felony
Midwest News • January 3, 2006
The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that a 23-year-old Chicago woman is the first person to be charged under a new state law that changes two traffic offenses -- driving on a suspended license and ...
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Subject: A really different take...
Posted On: January 4, 2006, 8:38 am CST
Posted By: Hal
Comment:
The various cities of the Dallas and Ft Worth area are beginning to impound cars of the uninsured. By law they can impound a car for up to six months until the owner provides proof of insurance and pays up the fines and everything. This, of course, is a valiant attempt to solve the problem of uninsured drivers.
But now remember the reason for requiring liability insurance is "to make sure that accidents are paid for", so say the mandatory coverage proponents.
Texas required liability limits are $20,000 per person BI, $40,000 per accident BI, and $15,000 PD.
Using an example of a semi-serious accident, hospital and doctor bills for broken leg will run a good $18,000.
Lost income for someone who cannot work with a cast on his or her leg will be, say $10,400 for a $12 per hour worker (5 months with a cast). So the total bodily injury bill of the broken leg accident is $28,000. Obviously, the bills for someone with a better paying job would be larger.
So how is this "paying for accidents"? It won't pay for a not-so-serious injury, compared to many injuries, and it surely won't for a serious one.
By-the-way, the "high limits" often recommended ( $100,000 per person for bodily injury, $300,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $100,000 for property damage ) won't make a reasonable down payment on the bills of a pedestrian hit by a car.
As for the uninsured - the vast majority are short-term uninsured. They lose their job or they get sick and have a choice of feeding the kid or buying insurance. They really should feed the kid and try to pay the rent if they can. They don't stay uninsured long enough to have enforcers (police or others) track them down.
The nation runs a 22% to 27% uninsured rate, depending on whose numbers and which state you look at. And the most surprising part is that it isn't much different of a percentage than it was in most states before the mandatory laws were passed. I think impounding cars will only give people having a hard time a harder time. And what will you do with all those cars which are worth less than the impounding fees? A few months of impounding costs more than about 30% of the cars on the road - similar to the uninsured rate.
We spend an awful lot of money enforcing something that cannot reasonably be enforced.
Subject: A really different take...
But now remember the reason for requiring liability insurance is "to make sure that accidents are paid for", so say the mandatory coverage proponents.
Texas required liability limits are $20,000 per person BI, $40,000 per accident BI, and $15,000 PD.
Using an example of a semi-serious accident, hospital and doctor bills for broken leg will run a good $18,000.
Lost income for someone who cannot work with a cast on his or her leg will be, say $10,400 for a $12 per hour worker (5 months with a cast). So the total bodily injury bill of the broken leg accident is $28,000. Obviously, the bills for someone with a better paying job would be larger.
So how is this "paying for accidents"? It won't pay for a not-so-serious injury, compared to many injuries, and it surely won't for a serious one.
By-the-way, the "high limits" often recommended ( $100,000 per person for bodily injury, $300,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $100,000 for property damage ) won't make a reasonable down payment on the bills of a pedestrian hit by a car.
As for the uninsured - the vast majority are short-term uninsured. They lose their job or they get sick and have a choice of feeding the kid or buying insurance. They really should feed the kid and try to pay the rent if they can. They don't stay uninsured long enough to have enforcers (police or others) track them down.
The nation runs a 22% to 27% uninsured rate, depending on whose numbers and which state you look at. And the most surprising part is that it isn't much different of a percentage than it was in most states before the mandatory laws were passed. I think impounding cars will only give people having a hard time a harder time. And what will you do with all those cars which are worth less than the impounding fees? A few months of impounding costs more than about 30% of the cars on the road - similar to the uninsured rate.
We spend an awful lot of money enforcing something that cannot reasonably be enforced.