Like a virus laws spread from state to state, I think they mostly start in California :) I noticed they said they will not pull you over to check - In Ohio when they passed the seat belt law they said it would only apply if you were pulled over for something else, now they have changed their minds.

Is this a bad law?

Gee, considering that driving is not a right, it always bites when you are forced to be personally responsible, eh? Let me know if you want some cheese to go with that whine.

These laws just create more paperwork. What the uninsured people do, is make a downpayment, get an ID card issued and then let their policy cancel for non-payment. They then have their proof of insurance card for 1 year, but have only paid for a month or so of insurance. In the meantime, we insurance types spend a lot of time typing up ID cards for the people who do have insurance, but constantly misplace their cards.

Do we really think all the illegal aliens that now have valid Tennessee licenses are also going to have insurance? Who is going to insure an illegal alien?

This would be a good law if it was actually enforced. In Texas, one has to show proof of insurance to renew a registration. In Tennessee, they will take their chances on not getting pulled over. But they will continue to tax us every year for the so-called emissions test. Booo!

You really need to think about this!

In Texas, one has to show proof of insurance to renew a registration.

In Texas you also have to show proof of insurance to pass the annual vehicle safety inspection. That being said, I have seen a lot of vehicles on the roads in Texas that would embarrass the average junk yard operator. Get down along the Gulf coast, where rust is a way of life and some of these cars would qualify for a NEA grant as desconstructionist art. I really have trouble believing that they passed the safety inspection or have insurance. I keep the uninsured motorist rider on my policy anyway.

You're only required to have insurance and/or a drivers license if you are an American citizen. If you are an illegal alien, and have an ID card from the Mexican embassy, you are free to drive without meeting those silly peasant requirements.

I've always looked at mandatory insurance with a skeptic's eye. Requiring it won't change the fact that people will drive without it, and the insured drivers will still pay in those instances.

Now if they required wage attachments in the event an uninsured motorist was at fault and doesn't pay promptly, that may be better. That way, someone can decide to bear the risk themselves. It may prove prudent in some locales to forego high insurance payments and carry the risk of paying damages out of your pocket. I'm sure it's not a wise decision in most cases, but it's possible. But then, that would require personal responsibility and less government. Imagine that.

Automobile accident insurance is backwards. It's structured to support the legal industry.

If you go to a baseball game and get hit, injured or killed by a ball, the court will inform us that the risk was assumed when you entered the stadium. No damages could be collected. We could do the same with driving. Insure your own interests. End the highway lotto and the fat attorney's fees.

I know. You'll tell me that "No Fault" failed. It failed because the attorneys wanted it to fail. If it works in sports, it can work on the highway.

Thats why you pay for insurance so that you are not personally responsible for your actions. The insurance protects you from losing your home or other property if you hit someone. Requiring car insurance is just another scam by the insurance companies to get everyone into the system. Insurance companies always have and always will charge whatever the market will bare.

I guarantee that insruance rates will not go down significantly because of this law....

No problem with it here. See, I have insurance, and I have the card to prove it. What I would like to see next would be a mandatory insurance law.

Thats why you pay for insurance so that you are not personally responsible for your actions.

Backwards. Purchasing insurance is acting responsibly.

Funny - I never said it was a bad law. My point was Tennesee is falling in line with what other states have done, just like with the seat belt laws. Smoking laws will creep about as well, similar to gun laws, etc. It was a comment on how states seem to be all doing the same thing in band wagon fashion and I wonder how much thought in general is put into these ideas. What is good for cali may not be good for Ohio, but law makers will just jump in and work on passing it anyways. Smogging cars here next? Changing our gasoline to something less efficient and saying it pollutes less? I see less states and one giant state in the future (You have to have smogging laws in your state because it blows over to ours, you have to raise cigarette taxes because people are coming over the border and avoiding our taxes, etc and so on)

I see what you are saying. States copy states. I think states copy what is perceived as successful someplace else. But I thought that was supposed to be a benefit of our type of system. Rather than having one monolithic government, we have these smaller "laboratories", where ideas are tested and improved upon. Tennessee, theoretically, has benefitted from observing other states. Now, when they decide they want this law, they have real data to observe, as do the voters. I can't think of anything wrong with that.

As for your other point, that the states are passing all of the same laws, that may be true. I think there are still some pretty noticable differences. It is an interesting topic, though.

In Japan, car insurance is paid for up front and cannot be canceled unless the vehicle is sold. Every vehicle is insured by a policy that expires one month after the expiration date of the license plates. As I remember, the cost of insurance was relatively low.

Unless you can afford to pay huge property damage and liability claims out of your pocket, carrying auto insurance is the responsible thing for any motorist to have. If you don't carry auto insurance, I hope you don't have any assets to speak of--because they will be gone when the lawyers get through with you!

They had an idea, here in California, no less which I supported. It was called Pay at the Pump, where basically they would jack up gas prices, but the money would be used for insurance for all drivers. The insurance companies and long haul truckers fought it with a ton of money and it lost.

I actually support that idea in a modified way. Right now, even with proof of insurance laws in California, 1/3 of all drivers have no insurance. Therefore 2/3 of drivers are picking up the tab with higher rates for those who don't get their cars insured.

My proposal is a combination approach. 3 steps. Put in tort reform. Limit the amounts that people can sue for in court for pain and suffering. Pay at the pump fund for the cost of medical expenses and lost wages and time. You then have the choice of individually insuring your car for damages or theft. If you don't pay for it, you are SOL if you get in an accident or your car is stolen. Cost of ownership would go down for most people, while the slackers without insurance would help pick up the slack, which would be severely reduced as it is, without multi million dollar pain and suffering lawsuits.

In Japan, many times the cop attending the accident will see to a settlement agreement regarding who pays what on the spot. At least that's the way it was about 10 years ago.