the uninsured motorist reality

[_ajax18]

Throw the 32 million uninsured drivers into jail! Put their kids into foster care! Small government! Low taxes! Freedom!

Good point. If we can't possibly enforce the law equally then we should get rid of it altogether. All the law seems to do is make things more unfair than it already is. Perhaps that's why laws like this should have been unconstitutional in the first place.

[_Icarus]

I doubt anything ajax said is actually true. This is one of his racist wet dreams. Weird how I've never heard of or come across stories about "welfare queens" but the world's biggest racists always seem to have such anecdotes.

[_EAllusion]

Throw the 32 million uninsured drivers into jail! Put their kids into foster care! Small government! Low taxes! Freedom!

Good point. If we can't possibly enforce the law equally then we should get rid of it altogether. All the law seems to do is make things more unfair than it already is. Perhaps that's why laws like this should have been unconstitutional in the first place.

The law says it's a $100 fine for the first offense, $250 for the second and $700 for the third. It does not result in jail time. I know LA is infamously the worst carceral state in the land and jail can come from unpaid fines, but the offense itself is not a crime warranting jail in your state. I'm not sure why you think there is a national requirement to have car insurance or face jail time, but there's not.

I'm personally not a fan of these laws, but you seem to misunderstand what they do and don't do.

[_EAllusion]

"Welfare queen" is a Reagan-era dog-whistle to refer to women who, through public assistance, were living a relative life of luxury at the expense of taxpayers. This was meant to sour people on the amount and eligibility of welfare benefits by suggesting they over-incentive people to refrain from work to live off of the labor of others. The anecdote it was based on wasn't true and no one, sans people engaged in outright fraud, was living a life of luxury based on welfare benefits. This is before several waves of reform that have made benefits even less generous and harder to come by. The term infamously was meant evoke without spelling out a stereotype of black people as lazy leeches on the government and was strongly connoted with race. In the year 2020, you almost never see it outside of people who need another term for the n-word.

[_ajax18]

Good point. If we can't possibly enforce the law equally then we should get rid of it altogether. All the law seems to do is make things more unfair than it already is. Perhaps that's why laws like this should have been unconstitutional in the first place.

The law says it's a $100 fine for the first offense, $250 for the second and $700 for the third. It does not result in jail time. I know LA is infamously the worst carceral state in the land and jail can come from unpaid fines, but the offense itself is not a crime warranting jail in your state. I'm not sure why you think there is a national requirement to have car insurance or face jail time, but there's not.

I'm personally not a fan of these laws, but you seem to misunderstand what they do and don't do.

Well that's interesting. If there's no jail time and if not paying a ticket doesn't usually result in being hauled into jail, then why would anyone with bad credit purchase liability auto insurance?

The law says it's a $100 fine for the first offense, $250 for the second and $700 for the third.

So you'd have to get caught at least three times driving without insurance before the tickets cost more than the annual premium in New Orleans?

[_ajax18]

I doubt anything ajax said is actually true. This is one of his racist wet dreams.

I wish it weren't true. But some people do this and get nothing more than a ticket for running a red light. Some people lose the farm. That's what white privilege looks like.

[_Icarus]

I doubt anything ajax said is actually true. This is one of his racist wet dreams.

I wish it weren't true. But some people do this and get nothing more than a ticket for running a red light. Some people lose the farm. That's what white privilege looks like.

All you know is what someone told you. You heard only one side of the story and how the Fuq would he know if she was on welfare? In all likelihood you came across a like minded racist asshole like yourself and you heard and believed what you wanted to.

[_Res Ipsa]

Another interesting question raised here is: If, as ACA opponents have maintained, it is somehow unconstitutional to penalize those declining to buy medical insurance by levying a mandated fee upon them, why is it not unconstitutional to penalize people for not insuring their cars? In both cases, the uninsured wind up costing both the government and the prudently insured more money than if everyone prudently bought insurance.

There is a distinction. There is no constitutional right to operate a motor vehicle. So the state requiring mandatory auto insurance for vehicle owners has no constitutional implications at all. Just don’t drive. With mandatory health insurance, the only way to avoid the premium is not to live.

When people are short on funds, auto insurance is one of the first thing to go. You can insure against that risk by buying UM/UIM.

[_ajax18]

When people are short on funds, auto insurance is one of the first thing to go. You can insure against that risk by buying UM/UIM.

Yeah, I can see why it's the first thing to go. Here I lived in fear of going to jail for all this time. Now I'm finding out that the ticket is less than buying the insurance and even that you really don't have to pay. Could you buy uninsured motorist but opt out of buying liability insurance and just pay the ticket on the slim chance you get caught?

[_Chap]

... Could you buy uninsured motorist but opt out of buying liability insurance and just pay the ticket on the slim chance you get caught?

Yes, but a religious and moral person like you would never want to break the law and put other people at risk of catastrophic loss. Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you, as the Big White Boss Man said ... and remember, he's watching to see if you're naughty or nice.