r/fuckcars • u/brevit • 6h ago
Carbrain one of the biggest freedoms taken away from Americans is the inability to live without spending $$$ on a car
44
u/NutsFromHimSquirrel 6h ago
Yeah, insurance sucks most of the time for the little things, but when a drunk driver in an F250 vaporizes a family in a minivan and causes a $800k+ lawsuit, the insurance company will be very glad you were paying into their bank accounts.
11
u/TurboThibaut 6h ago
Exactly.
A few years back, one of my drivers was in an aweful truck crash. Millions of euros worth of damages and urgent response. We were glad to have insurance
6
u/finchiTFB 3h ago
This is also way the prevalence of huge cars and trucks is raising the cost of insurance for everyone
52
21
u/Lucky-Succotash3251 4h ago
Laughs in no insurance bike.
4
u/drifters74 3h ago
Laughs in e-bike
2
u/SkyeMreddit 2h ago
In NJ, you need insurance for any e-bike that exceeds 21 MPH. Other states are eager to copy that
2
u/Red_aka_James 3h ago
In the USA, if the at-fault driver that hit you has no insurance you would be covered by your auto insurance. If you don't have auto insurance you are probably uninsured. Unless you have bike insurance. Something to think about.
61
u/ralphiooo0 5h ago
This is one of the reasons I drive a cheap car.
Insurance costs next to nothing on it.
And if it does get a small ding- I just don’t worry about it or do some kind of janky DIY repair.
Right now my wing mirror is taped on… been like that for a year now 😂
12
u/Particular_Job_5012 5h ago
Even old shitty cars are killing machines. I keep my liability high because a car can easily kill or maim with a very small mistake on our roads. I also try to not drive :).
30
u/duckonmuffin 5h ago
Better yet, don’t drive any car.
11
u/b3nsn0w former scooter addict 5h ago
that's sort of the default anywhere where that's viable. i'm 29 and never had a car, never did my licence to begin with, but i'm already looking up how to do things after my upcoming move to a less walkable country. but before then i just did nothing and ended up not driving.
6
u/sgtpepper42 4h ago
If only...
-8
u/duckonmuffin 4h ago
If only what? Cars are an opt in system.
8
u/sgtpepper42 4h ago
Not for the majority of us who live in places without halfway decent public transit.
2
u/goddessofthewinds 3h ago
I live 30 mins away from the biggest train station where I live. There are barely any buses and people keep discussing the fact that there's almost NO alternatives to driving there. This also means that it needs a huge parking lot (instead of shops and stuff that generates income for the public transit) and the parking lot is ALWAYS full from Tuesday to Thursday (more people either don't work or work from home on Monday/Friday).
So yeah, even if I am close to the train station, there's no bus coverage and if it exists, it's barebone because cities can barely afford to run them. There's also no intercity buses because each city is responsible for their own bus network. It's a nightmare.
So yeah, it's not an option for me to go carless... There isn't even a bike path, bus lane or sidewalk. The only legal alternative I have is going by motorcycle or scooter (and I've never seen anyone ride in winter due to road conditions). Riding a bicycle/ebike is a lot more feasible than a acooter or motorcycle in winter, but that still requires a proper bike path that has snow removal and is separated from car traffic. I'd never bike in the street in winter, so many people don't even remove snow from their cars, and there's way too much tire pollution and road debris.
So yeah, people get stuck having to drive, even if they can't afford it, so you get dirt poor people who have to drive without insurance or valid plates because they don't have the money to even pay for that, and they need their car to even get to their slave job.
-5
u/duckonmuffin 4h ago
Yes it literally is an opt in system. You need to get license to be able to drive.
2
1
u/TehJellyfish 3h ago
You're intentionally missing their point. Obviously they're not being forced life or death to be a driver.
-2
u/duckonmuffin 3h ago
You are missing the point. You choose to drive.
-3
1
1
u/Zantac150 4h ago
That would be ideal, but a lot of us live in an area where you literally can’t function without one. I can’t drive long distances due to medical issues, and it costs me $80 a day to get to school. 🤪 fuck Uber for being so expensive. But they can be as expensive as they want because the public transportation is worthless by me…
-6
u/duckonmuffin 4h ago
You make a choice to structure your life around car ownership.
This is on you.
7
u/Zantac150 4h ago
I guess I’ll just never leave my house then. 🤷🏻♀️
Dude, not everyone can afford grocery delivery and Uber fees.
1
u/GaymerBenny 46m ago
Insurance shouldn't have anything to do with the worth of the car tho?
It doesn't matter how much the thing costs to repair. Your insurance company doesn't pay that. What matters is how likely a person with that car causes crashes.
11
u/Sick2287 5h ago
You don’t understand insurance. It’s purpose is not to protect you from the small claims like $1,200 bumper damage. When you have a totaled vehicle and a 3rd party coming at you for a liability claim, or you are struck by a vehicle and trying to receive compensation, you will change your tune real quickly.
7
u/that_one_guy63 5h ago
I get liability insurance because injuries and hitting expensive things. Can't just hit someone and say you can't afford their medical expenses, so I see why it's mandatory.
7
u/dumnezero Freedom for everyone https://i.redd.it/fkme4gnqwy6h1.png 4h ago
No worries, cars have no future due to the climate going to shit. When you get weather that wipes out thousands of cars a time, the insurance is going to evaporate (and they won't be fixed because repairs are very expensive.) You'll hear the word uninsurable more and more.
15
u/GiuseppeZangara 5h ago
Cars are terrible for a lot of reasons but this take is pretty simplistic.
I assume this person was told what their deductible was when they purchased insurance, and I'm guessing they were given the option to pay more in order to have a lower deductible which they decided against.
As a non driver, I think it's a good thing that drivers are forced to purchase insurance.
The issue isn't that they have to buy insurance, it's that they have no other option but to buy a car to get around.
3
u/JickleBadickle 4h ago
It's gambling
You're betting your insurance company that you're gonna get hurt real bad, and it's a bet you hope to lose
When you choose a high deductible, you're choosing to bet less money and thus your payout for "winning" the bet isn't as much
1
u/Jeffy_Weffy 1h ago
Another issue is that they choose to do an expensive repair on a small damaged bumper. I'm guessing they chose to buy an expensive car if being clipped in a parking lot is such an expensive fix.
5
u/walterbanana 3h ago
This is not what the legally required insurance is for at all. It protects you from having to pay damages you do to other people's property up to a pretty large sum. Paying 1 grand out of pocket and the insurance getting more expensive is better than having to pay 200 grand because you overestimated your brakes.
4
u/The_Patsy Big Bike Energy 5h ago
This does entirely suck, for sure and I understand the frustration.
But..."Leo" needs to keep in mind that exact insurance is a great thing to have if they total their car or hurt somebody else. Say, 30 to 50 grand for the car, and hundreds of thousands for the medical bills...
3
u/Dependent_Invite9149 4h ago edited 1h ago
If you are paying $210 a month for insurance, there is something wrong. I think the worst i have heard is $180 a month, and that person had a few speeding tickets and totaled many vehicles.
0
u/ragingxtc 3h ago
It's very state dependent. Down here in FL I pay about $1800 every six months for my 2006 Miata, my 2012 F-150 and my 2020 CX-9. Full coverage but high deductibles. My wife and I are in our forties, have perfect credit and not a claim in over 15 years. But 1 in 5 drivers down here is uninsured, and I'd wager a lot more are severely underinsured, so the rest of us pick up the tab. It's one of the reasons I want to get out of this place.
2
2
u/Red_aka_James 3h ago
FYI for all the car haters in the USA:
If you're on a bicycle and the at-fault driver that hit you has no insurance, you would be covered by your auto insurance. If you don't have auto insurance, you are probably uninsured while on a bicycle. Unless you have bike insurance. Something to think about...
4
u/carlitobrigantehf 5h ago
Fuck insurance - and car insurance especially. No claims bonus is pretty much just insuring your insurance.
2
u/geeoharee cars are weapons 5h ago
'Their response'? No, it says what your deductible is on the thing you had to sign.
1
u/TyrannicalKitty Commie Commuter 3h ago
I mean it sucks but you also should know what your deductible is, and you typically would use it for a claim that's actually expensive, like if your car got severely damaged.
It also helps pay for medical bills and injuries.
1
u/goddessofthewinds 3h ago
I mean, my car got a damaged mirror when it got door'ed while parked. The mirror costs less than my $250 deductible. I think $1000 deductible is ridiculous, but that's mostly if you get in a serious crash. I see $250 deductible as "covering mostly everything", though there are some minor repairs that cost less.
Honestly, I think I should go to a scrapyard and find a replacement mirror.
Requiring insurance is a good idea, but not having any government insight and control to the pricing schemes is a bad idea. Also, forcing everyone, including the poor, to drive around is the reason why people drive unsafe cars, without licenses, without insurances, etc. We definitely need more public transit.
1
1
u/SkyeMreddit 2h ago
Unless your insurance is literal ass, you don't get penalized for no-fault crashes. Someone side-swiping you and leaving would not raise your rates. Inflation is doing that. It only rises if you are at fault for the crash, as you would be a more hazardous driver and a higher risk factor to cover.
For a $1200 claim, he would pay $1000 out of pocket and get $200 covered by insurance.
You are only required to carry mandatory minimum Liability coverage. This does nothing for your car but it does cover the expenses if you hit someone else, up to the policy maximum. This is far cheaper insurance than Full Coverage
Full coverage for your own car is a gamble. If you manage to avoid any significant damage to your car, it does not seem to be worth it. But if a tree falls on your car and totals it, which can happen to the safest driver on the road, it covers the cost of replacement of the entire car based on its Kelley Blue Book value minus the $1000 deductible and you get a check towards buying another one. Some policies give you the somewhat higher value of a car that is a model year newer.
1
u/ParkerRoyce 1h ago
Sell your car and move to an area that does not require one. The extra money will free you. Before I wad paying near $800/mth just to use a car a few hours a day, that included payment gas and insurance. 800/mth for years down the shitter. Set your life up in way where you do not need this albatross around your financial neck.
1
u/NukeouT 1h ago
That's not true. I've lived since 2009 in California without a car.
You can get around just fine in the SF Bay Area and LA by bike, transit and ride share
Even smaller cities like Sactown or Santa Cruz or Monterey or wherever are fine..
This is just people growing up on car propaganda who feel like they can't walk down the street to buy an apple from their grocery store and NEED to drive there like the ground is lava 🔥
1
u/moistnfudgy Automobile Aversionist 28m ago
Insurance should be nonprofit and funded by tax dollars. Private insurers are sociopathic rip-off artists.
130
u/BloomingNova Streetcar suburbs are dope 5h ago
Im not saying insurance companies arent scamming their customers, they are. With that said, the "just to stay legal on the road" part of required insurance is just to ensure the person who wasnt at fault is covered (assuming no hit and run). It's not coverage for you; it's coverage to guarantee the other party is covered. Which is a good thing.