Remember three years ago when everyone just knew that a massive database designed to tell law enforcement whether or not you were insured would reduce the number of uninsured motorists on the road?
Turns out, not so much. About 1 in 4 drivers don’t have insurance. Dallas County has the highest percentage. According to this Dallas Morning News article behind the paywall, evidently the program did well for the first two years, then started stagnating.
My theory? The fear factor worked well for the first year or so. Then people, being people, realized that they rarely got pulled over, and rarely got in accidents. Ergo, the likelihood of getting ticketed wasn’t a big enough threat to get them to continue to purchase insurance.
6 comments
If you received an insurance card in the mail with your food stamps from this presidential administration the problem would be solved.
Don’t worry poor people. I’ll pick up this tab too.
If you knew that you could be pulled over for no insurance that might help. If the cops could run your plates through the database and see the vehicle is not insured they should be able to pull you over and ticket you, tow your car, and leave your worhtless a%^ on the side of the road. But then again, what would I know, Im a lonley beaver
@Sybil’s Beaver – that was the idea with the database – problem is that for those 25%, they only need proof of insurance when they renew the registration or get the inspection done. The next month they can stop paying the premium and they are good for 11 months. The database can’t track premium payments.
Ironically, the only time that I have been injured in an accident, I would have been better off if the person that caused the accident were uninsured as my uninsured motorist coverage was with a good company that would have paid for my damages. Instead, I had to fight with Farmers Insurance for a year and a half before finally giving up as they wanted me to sue their insured and put her in bankruptcy first, a process that would have added another year plus to the process.
I like the food stamp idea, too bad we cant fund it.
Well, it still got me out of a ticket when I failed to realize my insurance card had expired. The cop was able to see that i did have valid insurance and let me go with a warning.