Driving Less in the United States

Sorry Plan9 I disagree. The thought the thread was about sales, not safety. But that said, if crumple zones are so good why aren't they required by educated folk like those at NASCAR? But yes insurance is, or should be good. However my point was that "Mandatory" Insurance raises the prices well above what a competitive market would charge.

 

Mandatory insurance is like mandatory seat belts: it's to protect you should either you or someone else fuck up. Paging @The_Jazz. I fail to see how insurance has ruined vehicles for anybody. I pay less than $1k a year for both a car and motorcycle.

Crumple zones aren't featured in NASCAR vehicles because they would present an additional hazard to the active track. Those cars feature full roll cages and other modifications that would make them shitty passenger vehicles for your wife and kids.

 

NASCAR doesn't have crumple zones. They have carbon/aluminum seats that do not adjust. five point racing harnesses. Hans devices attached to their helmets. Fire extinguishers. Nets to keep limbs from going out windows. Full roll cages. Doors that don't open. And pads on their roll cages. Apples to oranges.
Mandatory insurance and mandatory minimums are to help protect people from their own stupidity. And that's a minimum. I personally carry several times the minimum because hospital bills are not getting any cheaper.

 

I love the look of 1950s cars, but I strongly, strongly, strongly agree with this.

 

Yes exactly, NASCAR sets the example in safety, yet the industry uses crumple zones. And on mandatory insurance we pay three times the price of competitive insurance, for a much larger contract (less coverage, more loop holes), and yet I still have to buy insurance for uninsured motorists. Mandatory is neither cheep, nor effective. Insurance is cost inhibitive, hence one more hurtle in the formula of buying a new car.

 

I'm probably the last person who should be responding in a car thread since I don't drive but I am curious.
In terms of insurance, doesn't having the risk spread out by making it mandatory for everyone reduce the cost.
That's how the law was sold to our state.
Of course, I noticed that the price pretty much stayed the same but I blame the insurance companies for that.
In fact I blame the insurance companies for most of the problems but that's another thread.

And doesn't the survival ratings kind of prove that the designs have gotten better?
My mom was an EMT and in major accidents people just died, there wasn't much else to it.
Now you can have head on collisions at high speeds where people walk away.
Personally I find that kind of amazing.
Yes, many of the cars are kind of the same looking but I watch Top Gear and that's no always true.

 

redraven, Insurance is cheaper in states that do not require insurance. Under mandatory insurance they simply take their costs and double the number to arrive at a price. With competitive insurance, they have to make both the price and policy attractive to get us to buy.

Crumple Zones in say the XJ6, yes I am impressed as to how often the passenger compartments stay open. But few other cars impress me. Piling steel upon the occupant of the car, no thanks. Give me rigid any day, and true safety features to keep me in place. It is true that I need opening doors, and I don't need a titanium frame, but build that new car closer to NASCAR specks, rigid, 5 point harness, roll cage, head restraint... and yes I guess that would me look at a new car. But do crumple zones save lives, yes they do, only not as well as NASCAR standards would.

And Raven, your exactly the person who should be responding, the OP's point, less people are driving, hence buying less new cars.

 

Me and the wife have recently moved to 1.3 miles from our respective workplaces. I love driving less. Having to get used to the noise of city life, but I think I'll survive. As soon as I lose some more weight I'll even try to start walking/biking to work. Even driving less, I'm paying more for the privilege than I did just a few years ago. We definitely need better public transportation, and we need to quit letting gas and oil companies set our public policies. My daughter is about to get her license, but I don't really see her driving much anytime soon. I had my license at 16, but didn't do any significant driving until I was about 20, when I got my first car.

 

Hey, it's my reiteration fetish:

Given the exorbitant costs of nearly every aspect of a car crash today, I fail to see a single reason why mandatory automobile insurance is a bad idea. My state requires those that wish to drive uninsured to pay a hefty penalty that is often more than what they would pay to obtain decent insurance. Whether its the personal property thing that gets you (crashed your Mercedes into a library) or injury (two broken legs and severe whiplash), it's boku bucks most of us just don't keep in liquid cash.

And perhaps I need to break down the argument about safety devices into smaller words: Modern vehicles have crumple zones, airbags, etc. because they are designed to be easily accessible and comfortable for a nation of morbidly obese people that have to get to Costco and load up their pallets full of porkrind-encrusted cheese-filled sirloin steaks. You can't put suicide doors on a car for a fatty with two kids in buckets. Nobody would buy that car except for the niche group into track racing.

Cars, like consumer electronics, are now disposable goods. You use them for x period of time, they become worn or obsolete, and you toss them when you get a new one. The auto industry in America makes shitty cars to accelerate the buy-toss-buy thing.

 

Ive heard the excuses for charging more, but they are just that, excuses. Examples, when I was young and insurance laws passed, my insurance tripped. And, much older, back when I was the Mayor of Springdale NV, population 9, and not counting my Lamborghini, lets just consider my pos pu. My insurance was again three times my friends who lives in Wisconsin in a town of about ten thousand. Add insult to injury, he has two accidents and about eight tickets on his record, where my record is, knock on wood, still perfect.
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Ok, got me there, n thanks for the laugh. So damned true. And certainly a reason they will never get me to consider a new car, keep building cars for them, and not considering my interests, and keep wondering why I won't consider a new car.

N dude, if every body actually bought insurance when it is mandatory, maybe I would agree on it being a good thing. But even with the fines and everything, I still have to carry the burden.

 

I didn't get a driver's license until I was 31 (more than a quarter century ago).

When I was younger, I was poor and couldn't afford a car, so there was no point.

Anyway, I guess I assumed that every state had mandatory insurance for cars/drivers.

Michigan is the only state with "true no-fault". Your damage and injuries are covered by your own (mandated) insurance.

Insurance and lawyer lobbyists managed to regroup and prevent this sensible plan from being adopted anywhere else.

In other states, Michigan is portrayed as some kind of horrible socialistic Mordor.

But, here in Michigan, what you pay for auto insurance goes to pay claims. In other states, a whole lot of that money goes to courts and legal fees.

Finding fault (through time consuming lawsuits) in each individual car accident is costly and unnecessary.

 

Interesting story on the nature of car insurance which I will keep short for the tl:dr crowd.
15 years ago I was hit by a little old lady in a minivan when she took a right on red while I was going through the intersection on my bike.
My bike was destroyed and so was my leg.
It took months before I could walk and almost a year of therapy before it stopped hurting.

The medical bills were staggering but because my wife worked we made just a little too much to qualify for welfare.
The insurance company offered me a settlement that was well below my bills and lost wages.
When we went to court there were five lawyers and a three experts against my one lawyer who was working on contingency.
After a week the jury decided it was both our faults (I was on my bike in a pedestrian cross walk and in her blind spot) so they gave it to her since she was a cute little old lady and I was a damned bicyclist that make drivers crazy.

The insurance company probably spent more on the trial than she ever paid in premiums.
But that's OK because they could sue me for the cost because they had offered me a settlement even though it was obvious I couldn't take it.
$200,000 which they graciously offered to settle for 20,000.
With the doctors bills, that and everything else, I had to declare bankruptcy.

So I guess you can see why I have very little respect for insurance companies.

 

Well let's not forget mandatory insurance is good. Having it run by corporations that make a profit for their shareholders makes it more expensive. Insurance companies serve their shareholders. Race vehicles are on tracks that tend to have collapsible safety barriers. Tire walls and such that crumple instead of the car. Rigid frames mean no crumple. Which means your body decelerates instantly. The problem is, parts of your body don't. Your head can separate from the top of the spine, leaving you paralyzed or dead. Your heart can move enough to separate from the aorta. You will bleed out internally in a few minutes. But even if you were in the best hospital in the world no one could save you. There is a reason fatalities per mile keep dropping.

 

When you cross the state line, leaving Michigan, you instantly put yourself at the mercy of those bastards.

Seen from here, it's just terrifying.