People have debated whether or not car insurance is necessary
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Written by Atila on October 24, 2008 – 1:19 am
For years people have debated whether or not car insurance is necessary. It doesn’t matter that the law requires insurance, they still think they don’t need it. Many people press their luck by driving every day without car insurance. They think they are too good a driver and won’t have an accident, so they refuse to purchase insurance. Eventually, they learn the hard way, car insurance is necessary.
Let’s take the case of the elderly gentleman who began driving before car insurance was mandated by law. He had been driving for decades without insurance and had never had an accident. He honestly believed he was too good a driver to be involved in any kind of accident. He forgot to take into account that as we grow older our reflexes slow down, our eyesight begins to falter, our mind sometimes wanders during the most inopportune times and once in awhile we just plain get unlucky. Not only had he been very lucky, his eyesight was getting worse, his reflexes had indeed become slower and he had a bad habit of daydreaming of the ‘good old days’.
Do you need a car insurance company?
One day he was on his way to the store when he failed to see the light turn red. He ran the light just as a car entered the intersection from his right side. Unfortunately, he was looking to the left and hit the front end of the car. Fortunately, nobody was hurt and the other driver wasn’t the type to sue. But that didn’t help the elderly man in court. The court suspended his driving privileges for six months, he had to pay for the other car, was fined a total of $1000 and had to show proof of insurance paid up for six months before he could get his license back. He also had to pay $450 to DMV to get his license. He learned the hard way that you need car insurance.
Let’s look at the young woman who had just graduated and decided to let her insurance lapse because she didn’t think she needed car insurance. She reasoned she would get a good paying job and would get the insurance then. Until then she needed all the money she had for other things. She remained lucky for about a month. Two days later she was putting applications in at a couple of factories when the unthinkable happened. She was changing lanes and didn’t see the car next to her when the person in front of her hit the brakes. The young woman swerved quickly to avoid hitting the other car and hit the car next to her, driving that driver into a parked car. As she got out of the car to check on the other driver, she remembered she didn’t have car insurance.
Proof of car insurance
When she went to court she was fined $2500, had to replace the other drivers car because it was totaled, repair the parked car at a cost of $3500, pay the hospital charges because the other driver was injured, pay the other driver for lost wages for two weeks, pay for therapy for the other driver, had her license suspended for one year, had to show proof of car insurance before getting her license back and sentenced to six months in jail (she spent 90 days). She also caused her parents auto insurance to go up because she was driving their car, and their car had to be repaired. It all could have been prevented by keeping her car insurance. It took her years to pay for everything, during which time she had to do without many of the luxuries she took for granted before the accident.
Our law makers knew what they were doing when they decided we need car insurance. We may not like some of the laws they enact, but there is a reason for every law we have. If everyone had car insurance, when an accident happens nobody would have to suffer or do without luxuries to pay for an accident. The price of car insurance is little enough to pay for piece of mind. Piece of mind for all concerned. Lastly, there’s the married young man with a new baby on the way. He decided not to pay his car insurance premium because of all the doctor and hospital bills.
He figured he would get insurance after the baby was born. On the way to work one rainy day he was running late and was driving a little too fast for the weather conditions. The light changed to red but he was fumbling with papers in the passenger seat and didn’t see it change. A car horn brought his attention back to the road too late. He slammed on the brakes but skidded into a new SUV crossing the intersection from his left. That auto was knocked into an oncoming mini-van which was hit from the rear by another vehicle. Everyone except the young man who caused the accident had car insurance.
When he went to court, he had the bad fortune to go before a judge who was very strict about car insurance. He was fined $2500, had to pay for two autos that were totaled, hospital bills for one driver that was hurt, as well as a month of lost wages by that same driver, Chiropractor bills for three months for the mini-van driver, he lost his home because he couldn’t pay all the bills and his home mortgage, his wife left him and he ended up driving an older car because he couldn’t afford to fix his car.
He was lucky the third vehicle driver was cited for failure to keep a sure clear distance, so he didn’t have to pay for that vehicle. He lost his license for six months and had to show proof of insurance to get his license back, as well as having to pay DMV $350 for his license. Needless to say, his life was ruined. All because he didn’t pay his auto insurance premiums in order to save money for the hospital bills. So think again if you decide you don’t need car insurance. You never know what will happen.
