this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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Fuck Cars

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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

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[–] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 65 points 6 days ago (5 children)

In this land of legalised extortion in the form of insurance my friend who is in his mid 30s and been driving over a decade with no claims has to pay Β£700 per month.

My mum wanted to add my sister (again mid thirties and driving for nearly 20 years now with no claims) to her policy so she could borrow her car for a week and then maybe use the car once a month if that and they wanted an additional Β£1000 a month for the privaledge.

Fucking scum.

[–] kitnaht@lemmy.world 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Now if there were a /c/fuckinsurance - I'd be all over that. I love my cars, I HATE insurance companies.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 16 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I love that I only have liability at $100k but my cost still goes up every year. My coverage is actually worth less to inflation and those crooks want more money? For what?

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Go with a different company.

[–] marble@sh.itjust.works 19 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Per month?! Wtf are you driving? (Late 40s here, paying around Β£400 per year for my electric mini insurance)

My bad, i wrote per month but i meant per year, that was my mistake. He is driving a 1.4 turbo new shape VW Scirocco (sp). My mothers car is a 1.3 Citroen C3 so hardly expensive, luxury or even quick cars. Even Β£400 is disgustingly over priced in my opinion though, the way this country does insurance is vile.

Australia's system of buying registration which then covers your basic insurance (third party cover) which is like a tax and insurance cost combined for the car is much more logical, then if you want to you can buy additional fully comp cover for the car none of this insuring per driver per car bullshit.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 6 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Car insurance is expensive because cars are both risky and highly destructive. Hence, making a market for them involves high prices.

Regardless of what you think of insurance companies, there's just no way around this - you could nationalize car insurance and it would still either be really expensive, either on the policy level or else born by taxes.

[–] hinterlufer@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Certainly not. I just put in some data in an insurance broker thingy and I would be able to get insurance for approx. 120€/month with partially comprehensive coverage (including obligatory liability insurance). These outrageous prices are definitely a US thing.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago

The U.S is different in that car insurance has to cover medical expenses for others when you are at fault, combined with the risk of driving quite frankly being higher in the U.S. With medical costs being extremely high in the U.S, prices follow that fact.

I'm not trying to argue against the fact that they are both risky and highly destructive, it is definitely necessary. My issue is more with the way that it works in the UK. I think the system in somewhere like Australia is a lot fairer and isnt inherently designed to bleed people of the maximum amount of money like it is in the UK.

[–] ysjet@lemmy.world -2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Stop throating the boot of exploitive companies.

[–] ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They're not, they're complaining about the problems inherent to cars.

[–] ysjet@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Which is ignoring the problems inherant to auto insurance, which is fundamentally a greater force in the price/cost of car insurance than the danger of cars.

Yes, cars can be dangerous, but that's not why car insurance is expensive, it's expensive because car insurance companies have a completely captive market in the US- one that must pay whatever the insurance comapny dictates.

As a result, they set the price as high as they can get away with, and then refuse to actually pay it out anyway.

Don't make excuses for the insurance companies. The risk is the whole point, and certainly does not excuse their gouging.

You'll notice other countries do not, in fact, have to deal with this level of price gouging, which implies it's nothing to do with the cars themselves- it's just the insurance companies, and it always has been.

[–] ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago

The risk is the whole point, and certainly does not excuse their gouging.

The risk is the point though. High risk activities will cost more to insure because they'll need to be paid out more often. Couple that with the high destruction possible, and you have frequent accidents that can all cause very expensive damage, necessitating a high base price for insurance.

The price gouging is just capitalism, and I doubt anyone here is going to argue that capitalism isn't bad.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

yeah of fucking course. you guys are forced to buy insurance in the US, they have a big juicy captive market.

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There's tons of car insurance companies. We can shop around. Most people don't, for some reason.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 3 days ago

Insurance market is just another oligopoly... As with anything else they collude to fix prices. Sure you can lower rate of price gouging by switching every year but at the end of the day theybare still price gouging and there is nothing end user can do about it.

Parasites like warren buffet with geico bullshit...

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

You can shop around for insurance, you don't have to just take what they give you.