Auto Insurance Prices Have Gone Nuts (sherwood.news) 179
An anonymous reader shares a report: It's getting to be a bit much. Auto insurance prices have surged over the last couple years. March consumer inflation out Wednesday shows them up 22% compared to last year. Since the end of 2019 -- just before Covid hit -- they're up 45%.
Why? That's where things get complicated. In a prophylactic press release released Wednesday morning, an insurance industry trade group cited "greatly increased the cost of repairing and replacing cars" due to inflation. As anyone who has shopped for a new or used car over the last couple years can tell you, costs have gone up. That goes for the costs of replacing minor parts like bumpers or mirrors as well.
Insurers lost a lot of money on those replacement costs in 2021 and 2022, and are now trying to make that money back by raising rates a lot. Then there's also the the objectively atrocious driving record of Americans. Even before the pandemic, Americans were awful drivers compared to other high income countries, with auto death rates the highest among peer nations. High accident rates are reflected in higher costs of insurance. And of course there's also the old-fashioned profit motive. Insurers are trying to make money and raising rates is the way to do it.
Why? That's where things get complicated. In a prophylactic press release released Wednesday morning, an insurance industry trade group cited "greatly increased the cost of repairing and replacing cars" due to inflation. As anyone who has shopped for a new or used car over the last couple years can tell you, costs have gone up. That goes for the costs of replacing minor parts like bumpers or mirrors as well.
Insurers lost a lot of money on those replacement costs in 2021 and 2022, and are now trying to make that money back by raising rates a lot. Then there's also the the objectively atrocious driving record of Americans. Even before the pandemic, Americans were awful drivers compared to other high income countries, with auto death rates the highest among peer nations. High accident rates are reflected in higher costs of insurance. And of course there's also the old-fashioned profit motive. Insurers are trying to make money and raising rates is the way to do it.
This is also due to OTHERS buying electric cars (Score:4, Interesting)
I got a letter from State Farm about a year ago or so explaining why costs were going up, and they also said inflation etc but also pointed out that they had to pay higher costs to insure/repair electric vehicles, hence part of that cost would be spread out to all insurance holders.
Re:This is also due to OTHERS buying electric cars (Score:5, Insightful)
So how is that any different from the "safe" drivers paying more for insurance because of all the people who are looking at their phones instead of driving, or driving cars with no tread on the tires, or no brakes, etc.?
That's the whole point of casualty insurance: you are spreading the risk across a larger cohort.
If you don't like paying the companies "making a profit" off their service, you can (in most US states anyway) post a bond for self-insurance with enough funds in it to cover the required minimums for personal injury and property damage liability and then self-fund your vehicle replacement portion.
Re:This is also due to OTHERS buying electric cars (Score:5, Informative)
how is [distributing the costs of electric cars to all insurance holders] any different from the "safe" drivers paying more for insurance because of all the people who are looking at their phones instead of driving
At least one difference is that it's known at the point of purchase whether a given car is electric or not; it's not up for debate, and it's immutable. Whereas whether someone who's driving looks at their phone or not is hard to know, and impossible to prove without violating some standards of privacy. So if an insurance company publishes different rates for different cars, car buyers can make an informed choice; they can choose the higher rates for electric cars a priori.
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The issue with EVs is the fault of manufacturers.
Some, e.g. Tesla, have part supply problems. Some have resolved most of them now, e.g. Kia and Hyundai are about as good with EV parts as with ICE ones.
The other problem is that batteries aren't designed to be tested or repaired. If the battery is visibly damaged, the insurance company's garage usually has no way to test it or say if it is safe or not. If it needs a new cell or two, they can't procure them and the manufacturers don't support swapping them out
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So if an insurance company publishes different rates for different cars, car buyers can make an informed choice; they can choose the higher rates for electric cars a priori.
Except the purpose of insurance is to cover a risk of damage, not a cost of primary repair. Yeah the cost of repairing an EV is higher, but they are also newer. Newer cars tend to be safer and are less likely to be the instigator for an accident thus present lower risk.
Also the only time I've ever had an accident I was t-boned without warning by someone who ran a stop sign from a blind corner. That person was driving a piece of shit, I was driving a nice car. Why should my insurance be higher when the actua
Spurious Argument (Score:3)
So how is that any different from the "safe" drivers paying more for insurance
"Safe" drivers, defined as those who make fewer claims, do pay less for their insurance since normally you have a no-claims bonus and eventually even a "one-claim" insurance against losing it.
However, insurers claiming that they have to pay more because of electric cars is a very spurious argument because, at least here in Canada, the amount of your insurance depends on the vehicle you drive. An expensive sports car costs a lot more to insure than a compact car so, if EVs do cost insurers more then they
Re:Spurious Argument (Score:5, Insightful)
However, insurers claiming that they have to pay more because of electric cars is a very spurious argument because, at least here in Canada, the amount of your insurance depends on the vehicle you drive
Same in the USA. But the thing everyone is forgetting is the cost of liability insurance. If everyone on the road (except you) suddenly got a Rolls Royce next year, YOUR insurance rates would also go up, because the expectation value of the cost your insurance company has to pay out in the event of a liability claim against you just skyrocketed from "maybe hit a corolla to DEFINITELY hit a brand new Rolls Royce"
Same with EV's, esp. as repair/replacement costs blew past the stratosphere over covid, and insurance providers had to make them whole. EV drivers certainly pay more for their own insurance policies, but now every other driver also faces increased liability premiums as the fraction of "more expensive to repair/replace" cars on the road has increased. (i.e. 6.5% of new cars currently sold in the USA are EV's).
Re: Spurious Argument (Score:2)
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I remember when they mandated seat belts. Rates went up regardless.
I remember when Daytime Running Lights were invented, then mandated. Rates went up regardless.
I remember when airbags were invented, then mandated. Rates went up regardless.
I remember when crumple zones were invented, and became common. Rates went up regardless.
Using every tiny little excuse possible,- as the saying goes, any excuse will do for a tyrant.
You can see the same patterns throughout all of American business and finance. Who do you
Re: Spurious Argument (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember when crumple zones were invented, and became common. Rates went up regardless.
I think that's the biggest contributor to recent increases. Even a low-speed bump can be enough to cause the insurance company to total the vehicle.
I hope Consumer Reports or a similar organization starts ranking vehicles on their ability to be repaired, looking at how quickly costs go up as the severity of a collision increases. And I hope the insurance actuaries pay attention, as those that have the highest cost of repair SHOULD cost more to insure. When a car model can't be sold because it costs too much to insure, then and ONLY then with the manufacturers start prioritizing the ability to repair a vehicle. Right now, the incentive is reversed because repairs are profitable for them.
Re: Spurious Argument (Score:5, Informative)
So basically it's just another day in America where the rich screw the poor.
Nah, because EV's are not fundamentally more expensive than other luxury cars in each market segment. It's just that it became exceptionally expensive to make an EV owner whole after an accident, particularly during covid-related supply-chain shortages (i.e. certain models sat un-repaired for months, and that IS NOT cheap). Tesla's insistence on using their own bespoke repair network/parts also doesn't help, nor does the large replacement cost concentrated in the battery-pack alone. Again, this is reflected in the EV owners higher premiums for collision/comprehensive, but also everyone else's higher liability premiums because that's just how insurance works (i.e. you now have an x% chance of hitting a Tesla vs. y% chance of hitting a BMW, and the Tesla costs z% more to repair because of current market reasons)
In time, I expect the costs of repair vs. purchase-price of EV's to equalize w.r.t. other vehicles.
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One problem is that that price stabilization will be higher. All cars are becoming wildly more expensive to repair, and more importantly, re-certify the dozens of safety systems. A small bumper fix might require $1000s in certification costs, since active sensory safety systems are now housed there.
EVs just have both 'new thing' costs but also 'lets install every damned gizmo we can'-itis. Making the base value higher by default.
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If everyone on the road (except you) suddenly got a Rolls Royce next year, YOUR insurance rates would also go up
That does not necessarily follow. Yes, the cost of your accidents would go up but the insurance company is now also making tons more money from selling insurance to those drivers who now earn Rolls Royces. Given that each company is selling insurance to a statistical sampling of cars that should match what is on the road they can - and I would argue should - make those insuring expensive cars pay for the larger insurance costs those cars cause. Indeed in areas with no-fault insurance this is exactly what a
Re: Spurious Argument (Score:2, Interesting)
So, with a straight face, you're arguing I should pay more to cover somebody else's driving error, because I chose to drive a more expensive car than the mean. Note that without your proposed intervention, I'm already paying more for my liability insurance just like everyone else is, for exactly the same reason, but my collision coverage is also more expensive because of my vehicle selection. But
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It might not be fair, but that's how insurance works. The other drive might be uninsured, but often the liability for their mistake goes 50/50 as well. It helps if you have a dashcam, but even then there are situations where liability is contested and the insurance company will just settle 50/50 because it's cheaper and less risky than going to court. They might even be the insurer of both drivers, so it's better for them to keep 50% of your excess (I think it's called a deductible in the US).
If you read th
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That happened with fossil fuel Range Rovers in the UK. They have crap visibility so often crash into other cars, especially on small urban roads that are barely wide enough for them with cars parked on either side. They are also really easy to steal so popular with joyriders as well as criminals, who tend not to care about damaging other cars.
So even if you don't own a Range Rover, if lots appear in your neighbourhood it pushes up your premiums anyway.
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Look dude, if insurance really operated the way you think it did, there would one insurance agency and it would be part of the government. Insurance doesn't work like that. The insurance companies are no longer tethered to the economy and can raise rates at will. Pay or stop driving. There are no other options unless you own an insurance company... and I am pretty sure you don't.
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In Virginia, that 'minimum' bond is literally just $500 linky [virginia.gov]
utter insanity
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Hm, I guess that while your car may not be electric, the car you hit might still be.
Time to make a car out of tiffany glass and upholstered in picasso canvases and start brake checking.
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nothing can outbrake an EV
Huh? EVs are usually heavier than comparable cars and use similar tires. Stopping distance is determined by weight and traction and EVs don't seem to have any advantages over an ICE car. Doing a little research it looks like Consumer Reports [electrek.co] said the Tesla Model 3 had longer braking distance than comparable cars. At any rate, if that type of behavior is prevalent where you live you should probably invest in a dashcam.
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as nothing can outbrake an EV
Citation for that? EVs are noticeably heavier than their ICE counterparts, and their tires aren't breaking the laws of physics to stop them faster. They can certainly out accelerate most gasoline powered cars, but everything I've read says that their stopping distance is increased due to the higher weight from the batteries.
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I got a letter from State Farm about a year ago or so explaining why costs were going up, and they also said inflation etc but also pointed out that they had to pay higher costs to insure/repair electric vehicles, hence part of that cost would be spread out to all insurance holders.
It is more expensive to insure an EV because of the high cost of repairs and the high likelihood that even a minor accident will total the car.
Those who do not have an EV also see higher prices because they might hit one.
Re: This is also due to OTHERS buying electric car (Score:3)
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Do you have insurance comparison sites in your country?
I managed to get my insurance down this year. The key is to use a comparison site and search at exactly the right time, which in the UK is 23 days before your current policy ends. Search too early and they assume you just want it done and taken care of, so charge you extra. Search too late and they think you are doing it last minute and don't have much time to shop around. Any search aside from 23 days before due will lock in higher prices.
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Electric vehicle fire is about 100 times less probable than gasoline car fire.
But electric vehicle fire si much more damaging than gasoline car fire. Battery fires require more water to put out, burn about 3 times hotter and are more likely to reignite. There is a problem with “vapour cloud explosions and rocket flames” when the gases burst out of cells.
The situation is likely to get worse for electric cars as their battery packs age. Regardless, it is unlikely that electric cars will be catchin
Re:This is also due to OTHERS buying electric cars (Score:4)
While electric cars are by far the worst offenders in repairability, most if not all modern cars have become heaps of easily broken plastic clips with each component having carefully simulated EOL timeline to ensure that cars no longer go for many decades as they used to.
Electric cars just have a problem of lithium ion batteries sitting at the bottom of the vehicle for purposes of lowering center of gravity. Which means that which used to be a few bangs of a hammer for ICE cars is a scrapping order for an EV, as spontaneous fire risks from damaged batteries are intolerable for insurance companies due to extreme amount of damage it causes and time and effort needed to put it out.
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Plus, the way a lot of modern cars are put together, it costs $750 in labor to disassemble/reassemble everything that needs to come apart just to get to the damned $40 part that needs replacing.
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Oh, that's not a new thing. If you drive older cars (10-20 years old), you know that clicking sound. That fucking clicking sound. That comes from gear wheels in small boxes that open and close vents for car's ventilation system. Specifically it means one of the teeth broke off and it cannot rotate any more, instead just hitting the edges of other teeth making it go "click, click, click, CLICK MOTHERFUCKER" endlessly. Because they changed gears from nylon to plastic molded ones. So teeth break off way sooner
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Also, when the heater core needs replacement.
Just give up and bypass it because you'll need to completely disassemble the dash. No reason to do it unless there are other components that need repair/replacement.
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Re:This is also due to OTHERS buying electric cars (Score:4, Interesting)
Because a non-electric vehicle owner can hit an electric vehicle, and there's more and more of them on the road.
And when the electric manufacturers are making such bone-headed decisions that repairing a slightly dented panel results in a $42,000 repair estimate that includes disassembling nearly the entire vehicle, that affects everyone's insurance [autoblog.com].
And yes I realize that the Rivian mentioned was able to be repaired for far less by going to a paintless dent removal shop, it still had to be shipped several hundred miles to one of a handful of people in the country with the skills to make the repair, the repair isn't perfect, and they managed to get extremely lucky to be able to make a paintless dent removal work. And it still cost significantly more than a similar repair to almost any other car would cost.
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That's a symptom, not a cause. EVs are all newer and built with current technology; there are still many ICE vehicles in production based on 2005 designs, technology, and parts. As those age out of the production system - as they are doing now - they are being replaced by new designs (whether ICE, hybrid, or EV) that use extremely expensive and non-repairable modern technology and parts. Have a fender-bender in one of those, EV or ICE, and you will be hit with a $5000 repair bill. The days of "beat to fit;
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On the other hand, EVs by virtue of being newer and tending to be on the higher end of the price bracket, usually have better safety features that should reduce insurance costs. Things like front collision avoidance, blind spot warning lights, lane departure warnings, cross traffic detection and so forth.
Re: This is also due to OTHERS buying electric car (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not buying the insurance companies story that rate increases are due to EVs.
Presently, the numbers I see say EVcars are between 1%-2% of cars on the road in the USA. It also looks like EVs get in 15% more accidents than an ICE would have and the average repair bill is 15% more
That works out to ani crease in claim payments of 0.3% to 0.6% .
I would have to see the insurance companies actual numbers in auto claims before buying their story
My suspicion is they are trying to make up for natural disaster losses by overcharging automobile owners.
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The main purpose of insurance is spreading of liability. There will be a certain amount of accidents with certain error margin. All of it needs to be paid by people who use the system that causes the accidents.
It doesn't matter if it's automotive, shipping, housing, etc. The general principle holds. For example in the recent case of Baltimore bridge coming down? Insurance payments will be spread among a massive amount of companies because to spread liability in situation where costs may be astronomical, ins
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I don't think anybody has given the logical answer to this yet: the insurance company covers your liability made for mistakes you may make, and the expected value of that cost depends on the average cost of vehicles on the road. If you T-bone a Ferrari, it will be much more expensive for your insurer than if you make the exact same mis
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There is no reason they have charge non-EV drivers for higher EV repair costs, is there? If Brand A costs more than Brand B, then ONLY charge Brand A drivers more. Logical!
An ICE can hit an EV in which case ICE insurance would have to pay for EV repairs.
An EV can hit an ICE in which case the increased kinetic energy from 1000 added lbs of mass (47% increased chance of fatality) results in more vehicle damage, injury and death vs collision with a similarly classed ICE vehicle. Depending on the scenario either party may be found to be at varying degrees of fault.
https://www.autonews.com/manuf... [autonews.com]
Re:This is also due to OTHERS buying electric cars (Score:4, Informative)
" I have to pay more because of the fat slob in their pickup truck who's had three accidents in the past five years even though I've never had an accident in decades of driving. If there was any logic my insurance should be close to zero."
I don't think you understand 'insurance'.
An accident that causes a fatality costs on average 1.8M to settle for the insurance company (after legal, settlement, etc... all costs). There were 37000 fatal accidents last year. So it costs about 68 billion.
(And that's setting aside the nonfatal, and noninjury accidents for now, as total accidents is closer to 350 billion a year. But bear with me... just conside the portion of your insurance that covers fatal accidents...)
I know! We'll let good drivers who haven't killed anyone pay close to zero for that premium. And the 34000 drivers who will kill someone each year should pay 2 million dollars each!
We just need to figure out who they are ahead of time (because they probably won't renew their insurance if we charge them that much afterwards), and we need to hope they collectively have 68 billion dollars (hmm... that seems pretty unlikely too) Maybe this idea is stupid.
It's also not really insurance... its just charging people for the damage the cause, which doesn't work, because the people causing the damage don't have the money, and we dont know who they'll be. So... you know... "insurance". Where everyone pays more, and we rig it a bit so people who are known to be 'higher risk' pay more, especially if they are clearly making risky choices.
But clearly, you can't optimize it all the way so that people who don't have accidents pay near zero, and people who do pay for them... because that's not insurance.
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Tires and brakes don't last as long on EVs due to the weight. A 60,000 tire warranty will be, if not already cut to 20,000 or less for EVs.
That's a nonsense statement. Regenerative braking means the actual brakes barely get used, largely in emergency stop situations, and to take away the last of the momentum once you're already down to a very low speed; I replaced my brakes on my 2014 Leaf for the first time this year, after over 70K miles, and they still hadn't worn through at that point. The tires don't last 60K miles, but that's at least as much about the tires themselves being "fuel-efficient" (read: thinner, among other things); they ran
It's a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not raising salaries [imgur.com] or the price of insurance might go up. But then, it's easy to blame inflation [yahoo.com] for jacking up prices.
Hans Kristian Graebener = Stonetoss
It's not the cost of replacing the car (Score:2)
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It's the cost of providing medical care to people who are hurt in a car accident. The US stands alone among rich countries in medical costs. Also care that's provided as the result of an MVA typically gets charged at the much higher "rack rate", not at the discounted rate your health insurer may have negotiated with your provider.
I'd like to see your claim validated by understanding the number of accidents that involve medical services to that degree.
Car safety has also been forced to evolve to avoid killing too many smartphone addicts behind the wheel responsible for their own harm. Cars do a lot to protect the human occupants now.
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On the other hand, medical providers in the US have gone absolutely bashit crazy in what they charge when they can set the rates. The argument has merit that this may be the cause, but it really depends on the numbers.
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Safety of drivers and passengers of vehicles has gone up. Deaths in those categories have gone down.
BUT the safety of everybody outside the vehicle has gone down. Deaths are up, injuries are up. Damage to vehicles, infrastructure, stuff along the side of the road and everything else has gone through the roof.
As we've made cars feel safer, they've become extremely dangerous for everybody but the driver. The driver will feel safe and will do more and risker driving.
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"I'd like to see your claim validated by understanding the number of accidents that involve medical services to that degree."
Per the CDC, in the United States, car accidents are considered one of the main causes of death. In 2020 alone, about 40,000 people died in a traffic accident and about 2.1 million people visited emergency units due to traffic accidents. That is estimated at $430 billion in medical costs and quality of life and lives lost.
Re: It's not the cost of replacing the car (Score:2)
It's also because it's a lot more expensive to repair a modern car after an accident.
If the airbags go it might be enough to total the car.
Oooh, wow there's some deep thinking here (Score:2, Insightful)
"... Then there's also the the objectively atrocious driving record of Americans."
So, Mr. Blogger Sir, given the topic at hand is a dramatic recent increase in insurance rates... please explain how this has somehow materially changed during the past few years.
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Worse than that, the person used the word "objectively" to modify the word "atrocious".
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(Replying to myself - bad form, I know. I apologize.)
Can we make EAASFL ("English As A Shitty First Language") a thing? I think it has real potential.
Post-Pandemic (Score:5, Informative)
People have been driving worse after the pandemic. They were trending down until 2019, and have spiked over the last few years.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fa... [iihs.org]
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They're wearing their masks wrong.
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> have spiked over the last few years
You dropped this, King. [^^^]
They (Score:2)
*They, meaning crashes and traffic fatalities, as referenced by my link. Brain ain't working today.
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People have been driving worse after the pandemic. They were trending down until 2019, and have spiked over the last few years.
According to this chart the rate was higher 15 years ago when my insurance rates were half what they are today.
Re:Post-Pandemic (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting.
US: 2019-2021 about 16% up. Funny thing though. EU 2019-2021 is still 12% _down_ and 2019-2022 is still 9% down: https://etsc.eu/euroadsafetyda... [etsc.eu]
In addition, in 2021 the US has 12.9/100'000 road deaths, while the EU has 4.6/100'000 in 2022 (about 4.4/100'000 in 2021).
Hmm. According to this data here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
the US does not have the numbers a modern, wealthy nation should have and even Mexico, the Philippines or Russia does better.
There may be a point to the argument that something with driving is broken in the US. May be bad drivers, maybe bad roads, maybe more drivers that are intoxicated or on drugs, may be bad vehicle maintenance, may be bad survival rates, may be something else. A developed nation should not be above 6/100'000 or so at this time.
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Hmm. According to this data here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]... [wikipedia.org] the US does not have the numbers a modern, wealthy nation should have and even Mexico, the Philippines or Russia does better.
Mexico does better? You data shows US 12.9 and Mexico 12.8. Hardly any difference.
But that was per 100k people.
If you look at distance driven, US is 8.3 per billion km and Mexico is more than 3 times worse at 27.5
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_That_ is the message you see here? The mind boggles. This is called "active denial".
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Mexico has less than half the number of cars per capita than the US too (400 vs 900). Your data is only per person and not even per car. It's absurd for you to conclude Mexico is better than America.
Each car in Mexico kills over twice as many people and each mile driven is over 3x as deadly.
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There may be a point to the argument that something with driving is broken in the US. May be bad drivers, maybe bad roads, maybe more drivers that are intoxicated or on drugs, may be bad vehicle maintenance, may be bad survival rates, may be something else. A developed nation should not be above 6/100'000 or so at this time.
SUVs and trucks.
I don't know if this is a reaction to or because of.
The roads are a hazard zone and everyone who can afford are getting bigger cars to keep themselves safer. But if they feel safer, they drive worse.
Also the bigger cars are excluded from carb fuel efficiency as its being enough to be classified as farm vehicles. So, auto makers have stopped making smaller cars (e.g. Ford).
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Worse driving since 2020 is noticeable here too.
If it was all newly arrived illegals I could see it, we have rules here and they obviously don't there. If it was all the dopers driving away from the cannabis dispensary I could see it, but it's not just them. The bad driving epidemic is very egalitarian.
It's not even just cars,
https://www.yoursourceone.com/... [yoursourceone.com]
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Pay no attention (Score:5, Informative)
To corporate profits. They jacked up prices when there were brief legitimate supply chain issues and kept on raising prices ever since. https://thehill.com/business/4... [thehill.com]
I'm still waiting for competition to come along and lower prices...
Re:Pay no attention (Score:4, Informative)
I'm still waiting for competition to come along and lower prices...
That's the sad part going on in America right now, and tends to highlight the industries that have corruptly captured markets.
With the amount of greed in banking and insurance, one would think it would be trivial for competition to rise up and easily compete. And yet, here we are.
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With the amount of greed in banking and insurance, one would think it would be trivial for competition to rise up and easily compete. And yet, here we are.
One who was a completely ignorant numpty might think that, because they would be unaware of the massive corporate consolidation and attendant control of government through "campaign contributions" aka legalized bribery that came with it, which prevents competition.
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They jacked up prices when there were brief legitimate supply chain issues and kept on raising prices ever since.
It's like when delivery companies said they had to raise their rates when gas prices were over $5/gallon during the Bush years. When prices fell, did you see them lower their rates?
Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss
In Virginia, the law is very different. You can... (Score:4, Informative)
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In Virginia, the law is very different. You can purchase car insurance or "pay a fee of $500 at the time of registration. Payment of this fee allows a motor vehicle owner to operate an uninsured motor vehicle." While they may operate a vehicle, they are still financially responsible to cover any damages they cause.
I'll take your word for it, but I find it truly hard to believe that people are allowed to drive around uninsured for a mere $500. From a societal perspective, the real harm is going to be to the person the uninsured person hits - who will win a lawsuit in court for loss of future wages due to a permanent disability and then be unable to collect more than a pittance because the uninsured person is immediately bankrupt. It's one thing if you want to self-insure and you've got a million bucks in the bank set
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It's actually a $500 annual fee.
Re:In Virginia, the law is very different. You can (Score:5, Informative)
I'll take your word for it, but I find it truly hard to believe that people are allowed to drive around uninsured for a mere $500.
Unfortunately, it is true. Straight from the Virginia DMV web site [virginia.gov]:
The $500 Uninsured Motor Vehicle (UMV) fee, which is paid to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), does not provide any insurance; it only allows you to drive an uninsured vehicle at your own risk. It expires with your registration and must be paid at renewal. If you are driving an uninsured vehicle and are involved in an accident, the other driver may notify DMV that your vehicle is uninsured as part of reporting the accident to DMV.
A bit more [virginia.gov] about the fee. It's a yearly fee, but probably far less than paying insurance.
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It's a yearly fee, but probably far less than paying insurance.
I live near Virginia, and pay about $900/year to insure two vehicles, with two drivers, with higher end liability/collision/comprehensive coverage ($300K coverage for most things). It would be significantly less if I only had the minimum liability coverage, and it's already less than Virginia's fee would cost for two people ($1K/year). While I'm pretty close to ideal, insurance-wise (relatively cheap cars, short commute, married man in 40s, no accident-history, living and working in a low crime area), most
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Until July 1st, 2024.
https://www.montagnalaw.com/bl... [montagnalaw.com]
Surprised the legal system could handle not requiring it (contributory negligence certainly makes it a different ballgame, I assume it applies to almost all highway accidents - driving the speed limit would almost seem like a trap...).
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With the cost an accident can cause, that is insane.
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New Hampshire also does not require auto insurance, per: “ New Hampshire motor vehicle laws do not require you to carry auto insurance, but you must be able to demonstrate that you are able to provide sufficient funds to meet New Hampshire motor vehicle financial responsibility requirements in the event of an “at- fault” accident.”
It's all gone nuts. (Score:3)
Car insurance, house insurance, all nuts.
Mustard. Motherfucking mustard. I love Maille. It's not even "real" Dijon, it's from Canada, but it's outrageously good. 3 years ago it was maybe 2 bucks. Now it's 6.50 as of yesterday. USB cables. Tires. My tires were 84 each, in 2019.. now they're 144 as of last November, which is the last time I shod my car.
I have to put a new roof on my house. I can't swing that as a single purchase, I"m not made of money. The interests I got quoted are ridiculous (I haven't needed a loan like this since the car, 10 years ago, and that was 0%. This roof isn't 0%. It's double-digits.
FML. What is this, 1977?
"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." - V. Lenin (supposedly)
Keep grinding me, baby. When we're all gone, when all us "bougies" that actually keep your shit running in IT and other fields are finally gone, you're gonna *love* the results. Idiocracy, here we come!
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Yep. I'm with you, when the reality train of forget it, do it yourself then hits, they're going to panic. They're really trying to improve the vision of wage slave. History repeats itself, it ends badly, each time those getting rich and power think, 'This time, this time it will be different, because xyz.'
Doubtful. Pretty sure it's going to turn out like every other time.
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Mustard. Motherfucking mustard. I love Maille. It's not even "real" Dijon, it's from Canada, but it's outrageously good. 3 years ago it was maybe 2 bucks. Now it's 6.50 as of yesterday.
Just because it's from Canada doesn't mean it's not affected by what's going on in the real Dijon world. This one isn't just you begin screwed over, the screwed up climate in 2021 completely fucked over mustard plantations both in France and Canada. It completely ballsed up international mustard trade.
I can't common on USB cables, but tires are made of rubber. There was a global rubber crisis as well that screwed up the supply side and the industry is still struggling to catch up (this one not just due to c
Cars are getting more expensive to fix as well (Score:3)
The cost of repairing cars for minor accidents is continuing to increase as well. Bumpers are no longer bumpers: They house all sorts of sensors and electronics for things like lane-assist, self-driving, cameras, etc.
There's also the crime factor: In my area, we're still getting hit with catalytic converter thefts. When my Honda CRV got ripped, it cost $2400 to get it fixed with a used part. Separately, there are smash-and-grab robberies as well as easy-to-perform thefts against certain Hyundai and Kia cars (which made the news).
And then, yeah, there's inflation. There's inflation for parts but also in labor costs. We had two years of 8-9% inflation, and now it's still above 3%.
Driving during Covid (Score:2)
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There was an acceleration of the degradation of lack of respect for our fellow citizens. Now that we're all back in public, most of us have forgotten what respect for others entails.
Just today, I was stuck behind some [insert vulgar word here] who thought the middle of the one-lane road was their personal parking spot to run into Starbucks who brushed it off when I expressed myself upon their return.
Time for "no fault insurance" (Score:2)
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But... but... my unsatisfied sense of outrage! Unless I was actually injured I couldn't bring the hammer down.
No, that won't do at all.
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Picture this: no matter who's at fault, your insurance provider pays to fix your vehicle. You own a Rimac, you pay the insurance rate according to the repair cost of the Rimac, You own a 10yo Chevy Cruze? You pay the insurance rate according to the repair cost of the Cruze. Period.
Michigan has no-fault insurance and has the highest auto insurance rates in the nation.
Not surprising (Score:2)
The front end is filled with sensors and cameras. The rear end is filled with sensors an cameras and fragile motors. Some of it is mandated by regulation, the rest is endless featurization. All of it is so close to one-year-only components it doesn't matter, so every impact is a $10,000 repair that can only be done at a dealership, because the technicians qualified and equipped to deal with this stuff are rare, employed almost exclusively by dealerships, and priced accordingly, and the components have to
Any time you see the word inflation (Score:4, Insightful)
No, its government spending (Score:2)
Replace it with corporate greed.
No, it's government spending. When such spending becomes excessive it devalues the dollar and drives prices us. For example the current inlflation crisis is pretty much based on trillions of new spending by the current administration. There is no free money, you can't just print more without consequences.
Also, in this particular case there is the EV battery fire hazard that can result from even a minor collision. Batteries are being scrapped and replaced after minor collision. This is quite expensive.
Time to end the fad (Score:3)
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We bulldozed our cities to make room to take cars everywhere for everything
Dafuq you talking about? New York City is still there, Chicago is still there, San Fran is still there, Boston is still there, London and Paris are still there. I've visited some of these, lived near some, and I gotta tell you, there's nothing more car-unfriendly than a Big City. Cars are a waste in a big city. Maye something like a real Issigonis Mini would still work.
Us car people tend to dislike the crammed-one-on-top-of-another living of the city, so yeah, we're not in cities. But I bet you'll find f
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No cities that I know of have been leveled to make them car-friendly.
Paris did [wikipedia.org], but not for cars. And well before motor vehicles came into being. It was for the horse and carriages.
The wide boulevards and open space anywhere else would be condemned by the anti-car crowd. But they are what gives Paris its character.
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We bulldozed our cities to make room to take cars everywhere for everything
Dafuq you talking about? New York City is still there, Chicago is still there, San Fran is still there, Boston is still there, London and Paris are still there. I've visited some of these, lived near some, and I gotta tell you, there's nothing more car-unfriendly than a Big City. Cars are a waste in a big city. Maye something like a real Issigonis Mini would still work.
Us car people tend to dislike the crammed-one-on-top-of-another living of the city, so yeah, we're not in cities. But I bet you'll find fault with that, too.
I have no idea what you mean by bulldoze cities. No cities that I know of have been leveled to make them car-friendly. None. Not even Berlin, after the 8th AF was done with it.
He meant bulldozed city neighborhoods to make freeways. It was mostly black and under-privileged neighborhoods.
Not just auto! (Score:2)
Health, home, etc. :(
Cost to repair (Score:2)
Objectively atrocious driving record of Americans (Score:2)
Road Death Rates compared per 100k people
Japan 2.5
UK 2.9
Australia 4.1
USA 12.9
Pakistan 13
BUT... if you look at deaths per KMs driven, the USA is still worse, but the intra country number become more similar.
Thus, because the USA has such crap public transport (because of cha ching, Ford, GM), you have to drive a lot more than most other developed countries thus suffer more deaths.
Living in Australia and having visited the USA, my observations for the east coast at least.
- Lots of stupidly big cars/ truck ca
Inflation, the universal go-to (Score:3)
Yes, every business claims inflation, especially the ones whose price hikes well exceeds the inflation rate.
I can see their point about the cost of repairs. That *IS* greed driven, but it's not their greed, it's a combination of auto-maker greed and poor engineering. How about not putting crazy expensive sensors on the windshield? Perhaps protect other sensor placements a bit. Don't make entire light assemblies into thousand dollar monolithic modules. And don't charge $700 for a camera that can be replaced with an off-the-shelf part for under $100.
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That *IS* greed driven, but it's not their greed, it's a combination of auto-maker greed and poor engineering.
There's nothing greedy about my windscreen replacement due to a crack costing $2000. It's not a sheet of glass. It's a sheet of glass with embedded demisting coils holding in place a carefully calibrated piece of gear that manages lane assist, pedestrian warning, rain detectors, etc, all which need to be sent back to the vendor for recalibration after the windscreen is fixed.
There's nothing greedy about my front bumper no longer being a $50 piece of plastic, instead now housing a forward facing radar, camer
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That's basic stupid engineering. All that stuff that needs calibration? Put it in the frame AROUND the big sheet of glass that chips and cracks frequently due to road hazards. Or behind the glass but not attached. If maximum view is needed, how on the edge of the roof above the big sheet of glass (really composite).
The heater coils are OK in the glass, they don't need to be calibrated, just plugged in.
Repairability and maintainability are important engineering parameters that have been largely ignored.
My rates went down slightly (Score:2)
My rates went down slightly without switching vendors, which is rare. Based on the article summary, I'm guessing it is because my family's newest vehicle is a 2014, so the costs of panels and such, while not cheap, has not risen like newer cars. It might even have been offset by depreciation of the vehicle value (since they can always just say its totaled).
My oldest is a 2005 which I only have liability and uninsured motorist coverage on anyway, so body repair costs on that one aren't a significant factor i
Re: There will be many more people that go without (Score:2)
But since they wouldn't have among the worst mortgage rates, having taken it out more than a few years ago in view of having 100% equity, and probably don't make