Car insurance in California has price caps. And as many of us know from econ 101, price caps lead to shortages.
The California auto insurance market basically failed in December and it is now almost impossible to get auto insurance with less than 3 weeks lead time. Most of them have closed their brick and mortar locations and do not accept online applications.
Of course, California’s solution to a shortage is to try to mandate supply.
quote from commissioner that refused to allow price increases for 4 years:
> “These alleged passive-aggressive tactics by insurance companies to slow down drivers’ access to coverage are unacceptable, dangerous, and will not be tolerated,” Lara said in a press release Thursday.
This has become a significant political issue in most states, and auto insurance is regulated at the state level. Many insurance commissioners are elected positions, and if not they are closely tied to the governor. No one wants premiums to go up during inflation, so there is government pressure like never before.
What happened is that with the shutdowns, profits went from 2-3% to 20-30%. Some of that money was given back to consumers, but most went into an absolutely insane soft market where every carrier paid more than they ever had to acquire any driver they could.
This led to a lot of carriers having drivers on their books that they really didn't know how to price correctly. Everyone realized at roughly the same time that they had screwed up more than usual - and that was when drivers got back on the roads. Suddenly frequency and severity of accidents were up to historic levels because everyone forgot how to drive and is driving ANGRY.
So there's a double whammy, it's drivers they haven't insured before on the one hand and the drivers they do know how to price changing their behavior en-masse. So we've gone from once-in-a-lifetime industry profits to massive losses. For the first time, when the carriers tell the government the price is unsustainable they actually mean it. Hence the California shut downs - carriers are TRULY taking a loss on most policies they write and are trying to shut down new customer operations as much as legally possible. You'll notice a surprising lack of auto insurance ads on tv compared to 3-4 years ago.
Progressive's underwriters are so far ahead of everybody that they got a lot of their price changes submitted before everyone (the other carriers and the government) figured out what was going on. You can see that in many states where the prices are public, in an incomprehensible data format. So they have been one of the only carriers still getting new customers.
It's basically been a state-by-state showdown now between state insurance commissioners and carriers, and the commissioners are starting to give in. Premiums were up almost 20% last year nation-wide and it's only going up.
As a Brit the fact this position exists AND is elected is bonkers to me. It seems like the US talks about a free market but has done everything possible to add voting and red tape all over the place.
That is when you realize "free market" means "our buddies at the top can charge whatever they want, and you may not compete". Same with healthcare, telecom, financial services...
state mandated insurance shouldn't be legal unless either the states or the insurance companies themselves carry the entire risk.
Car Insurance in the US has turned into a tax on the poor.
I don't mind the idea of insurance, but I do mind the idea of insurance companies trying to lessen their risk by getting the state to mandate everyone needs to pay for it. If someone is paying insurance and the other driver doesn't carry insurance and doesn't have the money to sue for it, that's the risk of doing business as an insurance company.
It's regulatory capture, plain and simple.
And lets not even get started on police enforcing it and writing tickets or impounding vehicles of people who don't have insurance. Who doesn't carry insurance? Those who cannot afford to. The state is literally causing harm here.
Whether the other car has insurance or not is irrelevant to you. Your car insurance is going to pay or not pay based upon their internal policies.
What the other car having insurance does is give someone for _your_ insurance company to sue to recoup their money. Most individuals aren't going to be worth sue-ing, but other insurance companies will be. And most major insurance companies are going to have in-place agreements so that litigation isn't actually necessary (because it's more expensive).
The other vehicle being covered by insurance is absolutely _no_ guarantee that _your_ insurance won't decide to declare the vehicle a total loss. I myself drive a 2004 corolla that's had a salvage title since the mid-2000's due to someone hitting me. I chose to "buy" the salvage title from them and that vehicle has been 100% solid. They scrapped it because they didn't want to fix the body damage.
The insurance have had their cake and are eating it too. They're not required to cover you, but you're required to be covered.
I experienced once a minor car accident where another driver did some damage to my car (well, and his). There where no courts involved. Just one insurance company retrieving a bill (not mine because it was not my fault as the other driver and me agreed on (and used a form to confirm that) and paying the bill.
And my point is less about _who_ paid, but more about that _anybody_ pays. If two people without insurance hit each other, who's going to pay the bills?
if two uninsured people hit each other then they sue each other, they come up with an agreement on money exchange, or they both go about their business and pretend it didn't happen.
at least in the US, the only difference between two uninsured people hitting each other and one or both having insurance is the party doing the suing changes.
of course, injuries complicate matters but it's all roughly the same. Someone has to pay, which likely means litigation without a gentlemans agreement.
But if someone doesn't have insurance what's the chances that you suing that person is going to actually recoop your money? right, probably not going to happen. That makes it a business risk for insurance companies that end up having to fix their customers car but not being able to recoop that money. So they convinced law makers to require insurance so the chances of that happening are far less.
^ to better explain what I was trying to say before.
People will pay for uninsured motorist protection and _under_ insured motorist protection. under insured typically means an injury happened but the other persons insurance policy doesn't cover injury (liability) or the medical bills exceed what they do cover.
Think about that racket. They insure you but don't want to insure you without being able to fully recoop their money so they charge YOU to cover the case where the other drivers insurance won't cover it all.
it's a frickin' racket. If it's required by law it needs to be covered by the state or the insurance companies themselves need to be required to cover it. Anything else and it causes undue harm to everyone, most especially those who cannot afford insurance in the first place.
Definitely agree, and I also firmly believe that each property should get exactly one FEMA bailout ever. If you live in Florida and your house gets destroyed by a hurricane, FEMA should pay you for it. If you choose to rebuild on that exact same spot, and your house gets destroyed by a hurricane, you should get exactly bupkis.
This should carry with the property address - the next person who buys it should have to sign a form acknowledging that they aren't going to get a FEMA bailout if it gets destroyed.
Lots of Florida Republicans out there who complain about welfare but rely on some of the biggest welfare checks that get written to repair their homes because of the absolutely foreseeable results of their choices.
This is what building to code should address. If a house is built to a specific hurricane code, and is destroyed due to other reasons (a hypercane, for instance), then let insurance cover this and mandate rebuilding to an even higher standard.
: Dozens of modest homes along the Big Bend coast were heavily damaged in the floodwaters, but interspersed among the debris were residences left relatively unscathed, all because they were built elevated on stilts.
I could be mistaken on this, as I don't live in an area where such things are common, but my understanding is the issue is that if your house is destroyed by say, a hurricane, no insurance provider (or fema) gives you a bag of cash and says "move", reimbursement is predicated on rebuilding the structure where it stood.
Insurance makes you whole, not the property. You are perfectly welcome to pocket the cash. Although if you have a mortgage, you do have an additional obligation to maintain the value of their collateral or pay off the loan.
If you have replacement cost coverage (as opposed to actual cash value (=depreciated value) you typically have to use it to reconstruct the home if you want the full amount. This is typical.
"We will pay no more than the actual cash value of the damage until actual repair or replacement is complete." [0]
Not all coastal areas have the same strict building code. Homes not built with concrete exteriors and hurricane tie down anchors have a strong risk of being demolished in strong hurricanes. South Florida revamped their building codes after Hurricane Andrew wiped many of the homes and infrastructure in the 90s. However, not all coastal houses in northern Florida or on the gulf are built with concrete or on stilt foundations.
A secondary threat is prolonged flooding which can submerge entire homes with salt water for weeks at a time. That's very costly and not preventable with existing homes in flood zones.
This I never understood. Other countries didn't need building codes mandating such things - people always built houses that were intended to stand for many decades and that are suited to their local environment[1].
It defies comprehension that despite being somewhat poorer and enjoying milder weather, Europeans built their houses from brick and mortar while the US insists on erecting cheap cardboard boxes that even if they're not blown away or flooded, will probably rot away within the lifetime of their owner.
The US used to build using brick and mortar. It was abandoned because it was unsafe, most of those buildings were destroyed by environmental hazards that Europe does not have. Consequently, most housing in the US for the last century or more primarily uses wood, which does survive the hazards endemic to the US.
In most of the US, only wood or steel frame construction is safe. Wood houses last centuries.
Wood is used primarily where wood is plentiful. Northern Europe uses wood to build, especially Finland. Japan uses wood to build, although they import from Canada these days. Australia also uses lots of wood.
Wood holds up better in earth quakes and tornadoes than brick, but you could probably build safe buildings with bricks in the USA, they would just cost more and require similar or more maintenance.
The earthquake retrofits for brick buildings seem to essentially install a structural steel frame to which the brick is fastened. At which point it is not really a brick structure but a steel one. New “brick” construction is almost entirely brick facades over a steel/wood frame.
While steel-reinforced masonry can be made safe, it isn’t obvious to me that actual brick-and-mortar can be.
The design problem is more complex than you are portraying. I don’t need my house to last for 200 years if it comes at the cost of not being able to modify it (walls, windows, openings, floor plan) as infrastructure needs change.
Do you notice the awkward protruding wall plug, seemingly used by the lamp, on the photo you linked? It doesn’t have to be that way - I have put a receptacle or switch in to the perfect spot as a one day project many times, and we have reworked wall layout in several places.
And, the photo looks like it has single pane windows with snow outside? They might not have had functional multi pane windows when the home was built?
Needs and technical capabilities change, and a design that is less committed to mass walls has important flexibility.
> And, the photo looks like it has single pane windows with snow outside? They might not have had functional multi pane windows when the home was built?
That's water outside. After a storm. That's a waterproof house in a coastal area of Germany that tends to flood during storms.
Needless to say those windows are designed with another problem than just insulation in mind. I can't tell you whether they're multi pane. All I know is that they open towards the outside rather than the inside for obvious reasons.
I did not use the word "wood" once. I don't think houses with walls you can kick holes in qualify as wood houses. They're closer to cardboard than wood.
Anyways, the point isn't the materials - the point is that the houses are fundamentally unsuited to the environment they are in.
Very few houses are a total loss in the average hurricane. Indeed during most hurricanes there’s just lots of minor damage that you might see during a particularly bad thunderstorm, and people even continue to go to work.
Major hurricanes are a different story. But even then total loss is relatively rare except for storm surges unless you’re in the path of the eyewall.
There is no construction that can withstand storm surge, which is the biggest and most destructive hurricane impact. Even if the structure is intact, everything has to be ripped out of it. Most of them do survive winds short of tornadoes, though roof damage is very typical for major hurricanes and tree falls can cause problems.
We’re talking about the wind blowing up to 30ft of saltwater _miles_ inland. Given the comparative rarity of a major hurricane in any given geographical location and the oddities that determine the storm surge and where it comes in, the damage usually is worst in places it’s never flooded before - because places where it has are indeed required to build higher.
Are you just constantly kicking your walls or something? I don't get why it's such a big issue. I've only accidentally made a hole in a wall once and it was about an hour fix.
Drywall walls have never been a problem for me, in fact they're pretty nice. It's really easy to modify the walls. Need to do a new Ethernet run? Want another power run? Feel like moving a lightswitch? Install new access points on the ceiling or change up light fixtures? Easy to drop down the void and cut a new box. Want to redesign the layout of a room? Often not a problem, easy to change.
Meanwhile a concrete wall is a massive pain to modify. You get the runs you get. Good luck redoing a layout. Say goodbye to having good wireless coverage.
Even in places with lots of hurricanes the odds of the house "blowing away and falling over" are pretty slim. I speak as a person who grew up in a place that gets a lot of hurricanes. The biggest impact is usually flooding and roof damage.And now, once again, as someone living in a highly tornado-probe area, it's mostly roofing damage. The odds the tornado will destroy your house is still incredibly slim.
So do you spend significantly more for construction for a failure that's still extremely unlikely? Y'all are acting like every time there's a thunderstorm all the houses just blow down. You're entirely disconnected from reality of the actual risks versus massive increase in costs.
If a house is destroyed by any form of reasonably common widespread disaster it becomes illegal to build anything on that lot that would likewise be destroyed. You can rebuild after the hurricane, you must build a house that will stand up to a hurricane. (Yes, it can be done.)
I wouldn't apply this to flukes--your town does a Tunguska there's no reason to require asteroid-safe houses.
I would also make an exception for things which by their nature must be in the line of fire--such things must never be permanent habitation and can't have community-rate insurance against whatever happened to them.
A business can rebuild it's beach cabanas but would have to go to Lloyd's if they wanted insurance.
On the downside, when the next disaster hit and FEMA didn't cover it, it would look like FEMA doesn't want to cover low income housing, which isn't a good look.
But there does need to be some mechanism to convince people to abandon homes and towns that are not appropriate given environmental conditions. And it needs to be done carefully so it's not like kick all the poor people out, do some civil engineering that never happened while it was a poor community, then sell the land to developers who make a huge profit.
That is basically what governments are for, collective actions that make land more valuable: roads, schools, police, fire departments, and civil engineering projects.
Its quite unfortunate because it would be a great opportunity to accurate price the risk to encourage better building standards and fireproofing. In reality we don't need people to move to greatly reduce the risk.
In many wildfire events homes burn because brush/scrub burns all the way up to the house and catches the siding on fire, or because embers land on the roof or enter soffits and start a fire that way. These things are really easily improved. Insurance could require fireproof siding, no bushes/plants right up against the house, fire screens on roof/soffit vents, and fireproof roofing. Those changes alone would decrease the number of houses that burn in a fire.
Obviously there are some areas where the landscape, wind patterns, and nature of trees means if it burns it will rage and everything's gonna go up no matter what you do. But that isn't everywhere.
What I don't know right now: how much does CA law allow insurers to price this kind of risk? Is it a matter of law not allowing them to send accurate price signals? I can believe this is the case. I also don't know if CA law allows them to only sell in certain areas... there's no practical wildfire risk to the Bay Area for example so why stop writing policies there?
Or are insurers going into knee-jerk mode or even using this as an opportunity to goose profits (knowing that wildfires wax and wane)? I can also believe this is happening.
Like I said: it is unfortunate that CA law, insurance companies, or both are not using this as an opportunity to improve fire survivability in rural areas.
Much of the Bay Area is urban and suburban, with very little chance of a wildfire ever threatening those homes. Why stop writing policies in those areas?
If you recursively got everyone in dangerous areas to move, no one would live in California. If you live in a population center in California, the only reason why you aren't prone to wildfires is because of the people living around you that are.
It's a scenario where everyone paying the same actually makes sense. Your insurance is that others are accepting the risk of losing all their personal belongings or even their lives - even if insurance will cover them financially.
for long standing communities, ideally the government would offer voluntary buyouts if they can’t find someone willing to cover the insurance premium.
they already do the same in flooding zones.
but yes, people who live in fire-prone areas may take a loss. encouraging people to anticipate these losses is part of a functioning market. if they can live somewhere risky without financial risk, we only encourage future people to do the same.
As for those refunds, Californians are still waiting for about $3.5 billion of the $5.5 billion that Consumer Watchdog estimates policyholders are owed for pandemic-era overcharges.
The matter still hasn’t been fully resolved, say the state’s insurance officials, who argue that rate hike decisions aren’t interfering with unfulfilled rebates.
“These are separate processes,” said Michael Soller
TBF, that’s overcharged in a very insurance-specific sense, not a mustache-twirling fraud sense. Effectively they didn’t adjust prices fast enough to the actual changes in risk, which on the whole seems like something best dealt with ex post, not ex ante.
> Effectively they didn’t adjust prices fast enough to the actual changes in risk, which on the whole seems like something best dealt with ex post, not ex ante.
If the insurers could have it their way, they wouldn't have to adjust at all (for overcharging), while avoiding undercharging ahead of time. Oversight is necessary to counter misaligned incentives.
Right, this is a reasonable compromise between stability/profitability of risk-buyers and fair pricing for risk-sellers. Prices are unconstrained at transaction, but outsized profits can be clawed back.
How would they adjust prices for policies already sold and used, in the event the price for those policies was too low? Issuing refunds after the fact works in a way that issuing bills does not.
It is, it is just an adjustment in the cost of business (either positive or negative depending on whether it's coming from the business or the customer).
I live in one of the "any other states" (Washington) without a car quite comfortably. A lot of us can't or don't drive. It's nice to not have to put up with car insurance companies.
I'm impressed--no sarcasm. Would you mind giving us a glimpse of your day-to-day?Except in Seattle near downtown it seems like there would be tons of challenges.
I'm in a suburbia (not rural), but we have more of a trail system than a lot of other places in the United States. There really isn't much I can't do on a bicycle, and when I absolutely need to transport something myself, which happens maybe once every couple of years, I've rented a truck for a few hours. My e-bike does most of the heavy lifting when my total travel distance is over 15 miles and I need to transport stuff.
I get up, check the weather, throw on clothes for whatever's happening, jump on the e-bike, buzz half a mile down to a gravel trail that runs north-south through my city, and go do what I need to do. I use panniers mounted on a rear rack to hold stuff. For groceries I tend to go to Trader Joe's which is in a shopping area off the trail about a mile and a half from my house. Hardware stuff I get from a family-owned place that's 7 miles away, 5 miles of which is on trails. Electronics is from a store that's sort of like Radio Shack on steroids that's about a mile from the trail system, but that's more like 10 miles each way. I don't need to go there often. Work is 10 miles away, 9 miles of which is on a trail. I park in a bike cage, and there is a locker room with showers.
E-bikes certainly make it more accessible and I would highly recommend one if you are trying to drive less. Myself and many of my friends commute primarily by bicycle and get around fine on regular bikes, but our city is small and commutes are less than 5 miles.
I just bought a perfectly usable Class 2 e-bike with a rack for $1,100. I have several regular meat-powered bicycles too. Which one I take depends on how I feel. Sometimes I'm just not up for pedaling my way through a 20 mile round-trip errand and will put on my lithium legs.
It is pretty straightforward. My wife and I live in a condominium unit just east of the University District. We take the bus or walk everywhere. I'm sad the Safeway has closed, but we have easy bus access to groceries at QFC, the massive Magnuson Park, the smaller Matthews Beach park, and a short hop to the train.
I am fortunate to be able to work from home most days. I work for a medical group and we have doctor's offices across the city and King County. I can reach all but one by a one or two bus trip when I need to go, which is rare. We have friends who have moved up to Everett and it's a two bus trip to go all of the way from Magnuson Park to downtown Everett.
The only "hard" trip is to go see one of our kids who has since moved to Tacoma. We try to time it when the Sounder is running (a few mid-day trips would be great) or take Cascades if we feel like splurging.
As a car lite person, this comment is condescending. As much as I'd love if it were the case, efficient public transit is not a thing in most parts of the country. A car is a necessity. California needs to greatly expand transit or figure something out quick.
Usually telling someone to 'just move' is pretty rude. People have reasons to stay in the places they're at. Public transit is not viable in California at all. It's impossible. As someone who did 'just move' (and to the PNW, where transit is shockingly better), I recognize that this is certainly not a viable option for most people.
What a weird take. If you do live in WA, you’re well aware of just how rural WA is. You full well know public transportation isn’t a viable option. You should also know that Seattle’s public transportation isn’t something to write home about. And you’re fully aware that commutes of >30 minutes are not uncommon, in part die to how unaffordable the greater Puget Sound if.
A car is a basic necessity of life for the vast majority of Washingtonians. Congratulations on being the vast, vast minority.
> You full well know public transportation isn’t a viable option.
I do not know this. I have over a thousand taps of my ORCA card in 2023. My wife has more. We have been as far north as Bellingham and as far south as Portland on transit. We attended the wedding of a friend's kid in Yakima by riding transit to Issaquah and taking Greyhound from there.
I don't appreciate being told that my actual, lived experience "isn't viable", especially when I know several other people who do it just the same as me. Not all of us can or want to drive. This is even more true as people get older.
> And you’re fully aware that commutes of >30 minutes are not uncommon, in part die to how unaffordable the greater Puget Sound
According to AAA, the annual cost of owning a car is $12,000. We don't spend that money, so we can afford to live closer-in where transit is better. I am not here to judge people who choose to move far away but I haven't done it and I won't. But even if I did, I could just move to where I already have acquaintances in Lynnwood or Redmond or Renton or Burien and take the bus just the same as I do today.
> I do not know this. I have over a thousand taps of my ORCA card in 2023.
You're in the vast minority who can take the Sounder, etc. Your scenario does not reflect the reality for the vast majority of Washingtonians.
> I don't appreciate being told that my actual, lived experience "isn't viable"
Yet, it isn't viable for the vast majority of Washingtonians.
> We don't spend that money, so we can afford to live closer-in where transit is better.
Congrats on being wealthy enough to live in a place where ORCA has any value. Most Washingtonians do not.
You do, in fact, live in a transportation bubble. You need to acknowledge that your transportation bubble is not viable for the vast majority of Washingtonians, so your premise that being car-free is do-able in Washington simply is not a reality for millions of Washingtonians.
This is exactly the same blinders we see on r/seattle. Those who call for elimination of cars are privileged enough to live in Seattle and don't seem to recognize other's do not live in Seattle (or commute to Seattle from where most public transportation is not effective, viable, or possible).
Building your life around transit means making choices. Building your life around a car means making choices too. If the quoted TCO of owning a car at $12,000/year is accurate, moving some of that spending to housing could make transit friendly housing more viable.
I don't think this poster was calling for removal of cars or whatever, just pointing out that it's possible to build your life without them. For at least some people.
There's certainly tradeoffs. Where I live, I could do many things with transit, but hours of operation are very limited, and direct routes are very limited. Sometimes, I can take transit to the airport and it makes sense, but on my most recent trip, getting to the airport would have been very stressful as the ferry canceled most of the morning runs on short notice and AFAIK, there's no reasonable alternative route without a private car. On the way home, there's no transit on my side of the ferry on a Sunday, and even if there was, it ends hours before I get there. If I needed to build my life around transit, I'd need to fly only during limited hours and not have any scheduling mishaps, spend nights in hotels a ferry away from my home, or move to a more transit accessible home.
At the same time, I don't complain that NYC doesn't accomadate my life built around cars. I choose a life built around cars, and so I avoid built up urban areas whenever possible. I hate paying for parking, so going into the city needs a good reason, and I would never want to live there.
Some people, when you say “you know it’s possible to get by without a car”, take it as a personal affront. No amount of evidence is sufficient. Any evidence provided is disregarded as “sure maybe for you but real people can’t possibly live in such a weird way”.
The person you’re responding to is one of those people. Don’t waste your time.
But WA has 7.7M people of whom 3.9M live in Snohomish, King, or Pierce counties.
I agree a majority needs cars, but it’s hardly overwhelming — and worth remembering that half of people live in a narrow, urban bubble. A lot of WA’s political strife is caused by this.
What an incredibly weird take that makes a lot of assumptions. For reference, I live in Seattle now, no car.
Prior to Seattle, I also lived in Texas and Virginia. Also no car. I moved to VA being unable to afford a car or insurance.
In many situations it is doable. But it requires restructuring how you life and where you live. I spend more on rent, but make up for that by not paying for gas, insurance or the many other small fees that add up. People get trapped into this idea that they need a car that they never consider the costs it has.
Most WA residents live along the I-5 corridor in cities or surrounding suburbs, not in the rural parts. GP specifically lives in Seattle city limits, like about 10% of WA residents.
> Those who call for elimination of cars are privileged enough to live in Seattle and don't seem to recognize other's do not live in Seattle (or commute to Seattle from where most public transportation is not effective, viable, or possible).
I believe you fail to recognize that a lot of people who don't drive don't live in Seattle. Whether or not someone drives is not always by their choice. I have friends who are physically incapable of driving, yet because drivers tend to outvote and outweigh non-drivers politically, those friends are denied the transit service they would really like to have. And even when it is by choice, nothing says that Yakima or Spokane or Port Angeles can't have transit; most of them do!
I live in Seattle. My wife and I were born here and we will hopefully die and be buried here. It is our home. I have lived through decades of transit that would make a New Yorker howl in peril. It was not so long ago that our idea of a frequent bus route was every half hour, and the light rail (that began running after both of my children were born) stopped in downtown and at 11pm.
Seattle residents aren't a monolithic bloc but, generally, our push for fewer cars is because cars, and especially those cars driven in from places that do have quality transit to reach the city, cause a lot of problems for people outside of those cars. I really, really want to make it to retirement without being run over by someone driving into town who's late for a sporting event.
> Yet, it isn't viable for the vast majority of Washingtonians.
Not driving can be viable! It is viable, if not as convenient, in places you wouldn't think and might even consider are "too rural" or "too spread out." The fact remains, there are a lot of us in Washington who don't drive and, bluntly, I don't appreciate us being insulted or accused of having an excess of privilege or living in a bubble.
There may well come a day when you are not physically able to drive and I wish very much for you to have a robust transit and sidewalk and low-speed city setup that enables you to have independence and access throughout all of your days.
Yes. So it feels. In particular the 1989 earthquake and the years that followed were put to good use removing freeways in the SF Bay Area (and not replacing them - nobody complains that the Embarcadero shorefront freeway should be removed but it's fair to object to the lack of substitution) - And abandoning the idea of elevated and double-decker freeways instead of doubling-up wherever else it could be. Highway 85 completed shortly after that (but was in the works long before that). By contrast, it feels Los Angeles continued on an optimistic path, when the Bay Area turned back (and for example fought new housing as much as possible). This is also the time San Francisco turned against visitors and businesses - working to discourage people from visiting as much as possible. And then turned on its own inhabitants.
I'd say maybe a third of people I know don't have cars. In America. That's not a "basic necessity of life", especially when we're talking about well-developed regions like the west coast.
Even in large cities in California, it really depends on how much time you want to or can afford to waste on public transit.
Specific cases do work - or at least work better than the car-owning alternatives, for example major transit directions for short-ish distances in San Francisco. If your life revolves around a few of these, you are doing pretty well without a car ... and you still can't escape from that area without one. A significant additional "sweet spot" zone is where car usage has been made - deliberately and assiduously - unbearable. The choice is then about a lesser aggravation, rather then desirable service. And so we get the quality of life we deserve, and that's not great.
Nobody is arguing that YOU should own a car. If you are happy without one that's great and carry on. But that's rather specific situation.
fwiw Californian cities have some of the worst public transit of major metros that I have seen
like the Muni is cute and all but it’s a joke compared to the east coast systems i grew up with (wmata, mbta, nyc mta) many of which are in smaller cities.
Cause labor is cheaper in Nevada, people drive cheaper cars and there are less cars in Nevada on the road in general, so you are less likely to get into an accident. These are just the top reasons off the top of my head.
I live in California and my latest insurance quote was $7k for the year for a family of four, with no accidents or tickets. If this is cheap I'd hate to know what expensive is.
I have two cars, an outback and a golf. Yes we do have two teenage drivers which of course is expensive, but they've had no accidents or tickets. We drive maybe 20K miles per year all together.
Not just California. In Arizona, I was looking to shop around insurance recently and couldn’t even get a quote from my home insurer (who also recently raised my rates, mind you).
Last week I switched car insurance company and coverage was offered in the literal same day, all over the phone. In comparison, three weeks seems like an eternity.
three weeks of spotty or delayed attendance can lose one a job
most of the people with the option to remote work are working decent white-collar jobs, so add this to the long tally of policies that are designed to help but only hurt the poor
> three weeks of spotty or delayed attendance can lose one a job
Under what conditions will a person have a job that they are expected to be at, but not have car insurance to get there? I'm sure this exists (for instance for someone whose policy is revoked for DUI or accident or whatever), but in many cases I assume public transit or a three week wait to start is acceptable.
Just about everywhere in America requires you to drive to work. If you can't drive for 3 weeks, you can't work for 3 weeks. Do you see why this might be a problem
Grace and Insurance really don't belong in the same sentence. They are stingy enough to deal with as is, even when you have photo evidence of no fault in the crash.
Lol it's usually literally 5 minutes for me to buy a new car insurance. What's this weeks of lead time? This is not some physical good you need to manufacture and ship!
Which company please? [edit: Sorry should have specified: California. Anyone has an auto insurance company working quickly - or at all- in California currently?]
In most of the US, just about all of the large national direct-sales insurers operates sales 24/7 and will write you a policy in 20 minutes at 3am if you want: State Farm, GEICO, Progressive, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Farmers, Travelers, etc.
Yes sorry, should have specified, in California? California is having this problem currently. I am also used to California auto insurance working fine and quickly but that's not the case currently.
This is the lead up to them exiting the state like in Florida (and California for other types of insurance). I believe state farm and allstate have already exited california, but I may be wrong.
Three weeks delay is just the most visible thing, they are basically pulling out all the stops to try to avoid covering as many people as possible.
But even 3 weeks delay in driving a vehicle you just purchased is considerable.
Most (all?) dealers in California offer some kind of 24/48 hour insurance for you to legally drive home. The prices are sort of ridiculous when compared to normal car insurance ($50-$100 for a couple days of coverage IIRC), but thats just a function of the risk profile and the fixed underwriting costs of a short policy.
New Hampshire is the only state in the US that does not require liability insurance. If you drive through NH, make sure you have uninsured coverage. (and it is a good idea anywhere)
Yea but if the costs of accident exceed that bond you still have to cover it if your at fault.
Plus most medical expenses quickly will exceed those bond values these days. Maybe decades ago if you had a lot money to just set aside getting no interest on it it may have made sense.
However the costs of medical and even cars today make it quite a risky proposition
Laws haven’t kept up with rising costs, so the amount of coverage you are required to have in most states won’t cover the average accident, let alone catastrophic ones. Same with the amount you have to bond for.
Even if hospital costs aren't covered the average US car price in 2024 is close to $50k and a totaled car is definitely covered. Lord help you if you hit a Hummer EV or a Cyberbeast.
Yeah the minimum coverage is no longer enough. But that’s always been a problem if you hit a Bentley or exotic. People who drive 100k cars should really have to cover that extra repair cost with their own insurance but that’s not how most state laws work.
I looked into it as I prefer to self-insure for any non-catastrophic risk.
It makes absolutely no sense for me to post a bond for such a small amount when I can get ~10x the coverage, plus all the claims handling, for $1200/yr for two cars and two drivers.
It would make sense if I was a business who had hundreds of cars or some other weird corner case perhaps, but regular people who could afford to post a bond have a better option in the insurance market.
It's very similar to the dumpster fire that is PG&E electrical rates.
PG&E is a private company, but the CPUC has strict controls over it's operations. You can read the CPUC meeting minutes for yourself. Things like "PG&E would like to replace the chain link fence surrounding substation X at a cost of $150,000 - DENIED".
CPUC is a commission whose members are selected by the governor. They are the defacto decisionmakers. Yet Gavin Newsom will give quotes to the media on how "PG&E will need to be punished for it's mismanagement".
My only theory is that keeping PG&E private provides a convenient scapegoat for the utter mismanagement by CPUC.
Do they list the reason why they were denied? Something like: Utility attempted to charge $150k to replace $5,000 worth of fence with 10 hours of labor?
For example, PG&E wanted to replace gas service lines made "with Aldyl-A plastic that were installed before 1985" due to the risk of line failure.
The CPUCs decision was "PG&E’s request to replace unidentified services is denied. Moreover, the Commission does not find that PG&E has supported rounding up the number of services to be replaced by 73 per year."
It's a byzantine system of regulations that dive into the minutia of running a utility. Not to mention a lot of these decisions are by administrative judges since the regulations are written into law.
Geico will not give you a quote instantly and let you buy instantly.
you say you last bought coverage 18 months ago. i said the market failed in december. i encourage you to try to buy coverage now and see. i was also surprised since i expected the previous situation of instant insurance to still be in place.
not sure why i am being downvoted, i encourage anyone to try for themselves
Yes. I tried to get car insurance in July in California and barely succeeded — I had to walk in to an AAA branch and they quoted me 2-3 times the Geico price.
Geico will quote a price but forces a 15 days waiting period. Then they’ll send you snail mail and ask you to send in a picture of your car within two days, by snail mail. This is the car you don’t have insurance on, so it’s probably still at the dealer’s or at the seller’s house! I think they’re not allowed to actually refuse to sell insurance but they’ll do everything they can to make it annoying enough that you go away. State Farm and the others are all equally bad.
I eventually was able to get well priced insurance same day through “toggle” which is a Farmers subsidiary, even though Farmers is no longer offering online applications and has 14 days waiting. AAA also was available but like you quoted me 3x the price.
I mean, the insurance agent told me it was universal for all new customers of progressive in California. You are the only person on this thread who has said they had a different experience.
I am curious what makes it different, as I have no record and drive fewer than 2k miles a year.
I concur, bought insurance for a new car early January and got it instantly using esurance.com (Allstate) by just entering my VIN. Yes, I am in SF/Bay Area.
interesting. i forget if it was allstate or state farm but one of them refused to do online and also refused to do fewer than 14 days out - this was like two days ago.
To be clear: I already had my old car insured with them for several years, so I just removed the old car and added the new car. I am also 50+ with no negative record and a garage in a single family home.
Profit caps disincentivize companies to be efficient, meaning they'll just waste resources that could be used better elsewhere in the economy. Capping price or profit does nothing to address the root cause of the problem - lack of competition. Lack of competition could be addressed by finding ways to reduce regulatory hurdles to enter the market, or by breaking up monopolies with anti-trust action.
You got laid off because they dont need you. I understand how traumatic and life destroying it can be sometimes, but long term it destroys the future of overall population, to prevent firing people who are no longer necessary.
We’d all be stuck as farmers, tailors and wood cutters, if firing people was penalised or efficiency was punished, no one would want to make their company more efficient with wood cutting machines or sewing machines, or tractors for farming, etc.
In a small timeframe it is horrible to lose a job, but the state is responsible for protecting both the future generations balanced with comfort and safety of present population.
A affordable unemployment insurance is a much better idea tbh compared to profit caps or price caps.
Good luck tho!, may you get a great job soon. May god bless you.
The prohibition should stand. People should have a voluntary option to pay or not pay for services as they choose. Except I suppose in quite exceptional circumstances.
If a group of locals want to pool their cash and start up a local broadband service then good on them, best of luck. But taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook to help them.
USPS is an example. It's sort of a public utility that has some strange requirements, like it _must_ __offer__ service to everyone. In some places this is less profitable, and private postal / shipping firms might not even offer their own service (or pay USPS for the last leg instead).
However, because USPS exists, there is a ceiling to how much other firms can charge without differentiating their services to make it worth the difference in cost. It helps ensure the market functions with proper competition.
For any other market where distortion (dysfunctional market) is observed, the solution is not to mandate the impossible from the existing players, but to modify the market conditions where they are broken.
Say we have a Centiville, a conveniently sized community of 100 people. 90 of them want municipal broadband because they like the internet.
That 90% should be allowed to pool their resources, start a "Centiville Fibre" company, build out fibre locally and charge locals a fair rate. Then the remaining 10 don't have to be involved in something they don't want. Or they can pay market rate for it without getting a dividend, which is effectively a penalty.
No government involvement required outside maybe permitting. The people who want it pay, it probably happens faster and all is good.
> And they want their tax money to go to something actually useful for them.
They're going to have their taxes raised to pay for the installation costs. Doing it through the government doesn't mean there is more money (unless they're harvesting resources off people who think it is a bad idea / don't want it / can't afford it which is unfair).
I don’t have children but I still pay for the schools. The idea that your tax dollars should only get spent on something you use personally is laughable.
Well, yes. But that is a straw man because nobody argued that.
Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for things that they don't use and don't think are good ideas. If you use it, you should pay for it. If you think it is a good idea, you should pay for it. But if people think something is a bad idea they should only have to pay for it under highly exceptional circumstances.
There is no need to force people to pay for broadband. This is a problem that a company can solve using voluntary action.
What straw man is constructed here? There are people who don’t think they should pay for schools with their taxes. There are people who literally are advocating to instead be paid to not use public schools at all.
Many people strongly disagree about the places their tax dollars go. It is maybe one of the single most common complaints people utter and this is an example of it? People are able to make decisions about where their tax dollars go but only in the abstract of collective action via legislation. It’s kind of how governments work on a fundamental level and most of politics is about where the tax dollars go.
If a strong majority of people choose to do something as a municipality, that is the system at work. Sorry to the 10% of people who think they’re getting a bad deal (and are also almost certainly wrong on an objective level unless they just don’t want internet at all).
The suggestion that instead a private enterprise should be spun up for it so they can choose to not subscribe is the antithesis of the entire point. The entire point is that the cost is already beared by the taxpayers in the first place and that it should serve them. It makes more sense to invest directly in the creation and keep it in the hands of those who bore the cost. We give billions out in corporate welfare and yet the companies who get that money are quite often the most reviled in the nation based on public polling (Telcos). It is almost like the incentives aren’t aligned.
The idea that your tax dollars should only get spent on something you use personally is laughable - I'm not arguing that.
> The entire point is that the cost is already beared by the taxpayers in the first place and that it should serve them...
Well, having the taxpayers pay for it is obviously failing. Maybe try not taking the money off people and letting them build their own broadband? If you've identified that something the government is doing isn't working, the first port of call is try privatising it. The private market is pretty good at providing things.
Getting local government to do something instead of state or federal is an improvement; but by golly you could just have the people who want something organise to have what they want without dragging the unwilling in to it. 90% vs 100% of local people paying for something doesn't really make a difference to the underlying economics.
> If a strong majority of people choose to do something as a municipality, that is the system at work. Sorry to the 10% of people who think they’re getting a bad deal (and are also almost certainly wrong on an objective level unless they just don’t want internet at all).
No that isn't the system at work, that is the system failing. Taking a system that could work with just a motivated minority organising it and changing it to a system where everyone has to vote on it at regular intervals is a recipe for failure. If a strong majority wants something, they have all the tools they need to do it themselves at their own cost. The only reason they even need a majority is to push any obstructionist permitting and whatnot out of the way.
> We give billions out in corporate welfare and yet the companies who get that money are quite often the most reviled in the nation based on public polling (Telcos).
A sensible take there is to not make paying them compulsory? I get what you're saying but I don't get how you aren't joining the dots. You start by saying that some people are going to have to pay for something they don't want. You then get to the conclusion and you've identified that people are being forced to pay for something they don't want and that is bad.
There is an easy solution to all this. Stop forcing people to fund things they think are bad ideas, then let the people who want broadband band together, set up a limited liability corporation to control the legal risk, and build themselves a broadband network. IE, get government out of the picture as much as possible. Then literally everyone gets what they want. If someone changes their mind later they aren't a shareholder and will end up having to give money to the people with more foresight.
Similarly. If someone wants to go off the grid there isn't any reason to force them on to it. Ditto water supplies if they want to try something alternative. And they shouldn't have to pay for a service they aren't connected too because that would be dumb. I'd probably advocate a law that you have to disclose being unconnected to major utilities clearly, obviously and early in the process when selling or renting a house.
I don't really see why anyone should be unhappy if Sam the Solar wants to power his own house. Good luck to him. He doesn't have to pay for my electricity and I don't have to pay for his. If it is much more cost effective for him he can come do my house too. There is literally no need to force them to pay or force them to consume a service that they don't think it a good idea.
And the closer the equilibrium can be pushed to a fully private free market the more cost effective it is likely to be.
Example: Germany’s mostly-public (Gesetzliche - more like, extremely strictly regulated) health insurance system putting a market-based cap on what private (more like, more lightly-regulated) insurance can cost and cover.
I was on the private system my first 13 years working in Germany. I was obligated (but didn’t try to fight) switch to public recently.
I'm all for government 'competition' so long as they play by the rules of the market. If government 'competition' means a money-losing (i.e. tax-supported) enterprise, then it's not competition, it's just price-setting with extra steps.
cost-plus has largely proved to be a busted business model. in industries where it is de rigueur, such as defense and space, traditional business models have driven efficiency improvements and new product development alongside price decreases.
I’ve always suspected that that incentivized health insurance companies to let hospitals inflate costs. If the government forbids me from increasing my percentage of the pie and I need to increase revenue I have to increase the size of the pie.
Yes, this and vertical integration. The insurance company may have limited profit, but if the hospital doesn't, and they're both owned by the same parent company, then the prices "inside the control volume" can be whatever fiction is most convenient to report to the government.
Looked up the largest health insurer, they operate hospitals:
> Kaiser Permanente operates 39 hospitals and more than 700 medical offices, with over 300,000 personnel, including more than 87,000 physicians and nurses.
The California auto insurance market basically failed in December and it is now almost impossible to get auto insurance with less than 3 weeks lead time. Most of them have closed their brick and mortar locations and do not accept online applications.
Of course, California’s solution to a shortage is to try to mandate supply.
quote from commissioner that refused to allow price increases for 4 years:
> “These alleged passive-aggressive tactics by insurance companies to slow down drivers’ access to coverage are unacceptable, dangerous, and will not be tolerated,” Lara said in a press release Thursday.