Posted on 07/13/2010 9:06:57 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
If only vehicles registered in the Rio Grande Valley filled the roadways, drivers would have a three-in-10 chance of encountering an uninsured driver, according to the state’s insurance regulator.
Almost one-third of the drivers in Cameron County do not have automobile insurance, making the county second in the state for percentage of uninsured motorists.
That high percentage may be responsible for the high insurance premiums Rio Grande Valley drivers pay, according to a Valley Morning Star study of Texas insurance premiums.
Across the four-county region, 29 percent of the 713,184 vehicles registered in Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy and Starr counties do not have insurance.
TexasSure, the state’s vehicle insurance verification program, reported 209,235 uninsured vehicles in Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy and Starr counties as of Feb. 22.
“It’s hard to put an exact cost for how much uninsured drivers cost the insured drivers,” Texas Department of Insurance spokesperson Jerry Hagins said. “What we have found is the extra coverage for covering uninsured and underinsured drivers is just under $1 billion each year.”
Through a mandate by the Texas Legislature, the Texas Department of Insurance started its TexasSure program to combat the state’s uninsured driver issue, Hagins said.
TDI, the state’s insurance regulation agency, works with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles and state insurance agents to compile a database of uninsured drivers, Hagins said.
The database is accessible by local law enforcement through their computer system, which has become mobile in most cities, including Harlingen, Hagins said.
As part of the TexasSure program, TDI has released two reports in the past six months giving a county-by-county breakdown of uninsured drivers.
In Cameron County, 30.7 percent of registered vehicles are uninsured, the second highest rate in the state behind Kenedy County, 47.8 percent, according to the report.
(Excerpt) Read more at brownsvilleherald.com ...
Probably 4 in 10 here in Mississippi, what can I say.....
I always thought mandatory insurance was a scam but with all the illegals maybe it’s not such a bad idea.
That means those that pay are paying 50% too much.
As long as they are ILLEGAL or black; anything but white, it will be okay with Obama.
And 9 out of 10 of those 3 are illegal invaders.
They’re pikers! Philly routinely averages 7 or 8 out of 10.
And that doesn’t even mention the ones from Mexico driving around in the valley that can hit you, do great damage to your car and your passengers, and go back across the border where you can’t touch them. Your insurance pays, your rates go up. But if you get in a collision in Mexico, more often than not they impound your car until they can sort out who has to pay.
Isn't race everything to liberals? Oh, maybe it's not to their advantage to categorize people by race? Is that it?
Requiring insurance for drivers is racist. Migrants have a right to free cars with insurance paid for by the racist Americans who have no right to be on this continent. /s
Valle ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
New Mexico is easily 4 in 10. Roughly equal to the percent of drunks on the road...(okay, the drunk figure may be an exaggeration, maybe).
If the illegals around here buy it at all, they do so only to register the vehicle, then they cancel and go about their normal operations.
Laws requiring insurance are BS anyway since there is always a way around it and it drove the price of insurance up due to the fact we are a captive market.
Note to illegals: “Jump out and run” is not part of any auto accident insurance plan.
There are a lot of uninsured drivers in Texas. No doubt a lot in the valley. Big problem probably.
But given how many giant ranches and farms there are in the valley I wonder how many of the vehicles in this headline number are vehicles registered but not insured and never leave the property. You may want to register them to get them on the books properly I think, but why insure a ranch truck that never leaves the ranch? Or it may have been registered but everything is lapsed now that it is a ranch truck.
Anyway, I am not disputing the story, just curious if this has anything to do with some of the numbers.
You're almost right.
Based on the experience of having lived down there for a few years, it's likely the poll included lots of Winter Texans (a.k.a. Snow Birds), almost all of whom have insurance.
The real proportion of uninsured motorists is most likely 70 percent, and a full third of those are illegals.
This is reasonably close to your estimate.
Vehicles that never leave the property are never typically registered anyway so they wouldn’t show up in these stats.
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