A thought on the disproportionate costs borne by cyclists and pedestrians
I meant to post about the report just released by the Alliance for Biking and Walking that discusses the disproportionate costs borne by cyclists and pedestrians for safety measures, but I notice Mike McKisson over at TucsonVelo did a much better job than I would have and broke the results down for Tucson and Phoenix — so check out his post for the background.
The gist of the report is that cyclists and pedestrians pay disproportionately — with their lives, that is — for their chosen modes of transport. We die more often than drivers do while we’re trying to get somewhere, but the government spends less on our safety.
As bad as that is, I think there is something even worse going on, which is that we are permitted to drive around in provably deadly machines in a country that does not provide health care to all, and we are permitted to do so with levels of liability insurance that are horrifically insufficient.
Here in Arizona it is perfectly legal to purchase just $15,000.00 in liability insurance. Which means, if you hit a cyclist, the most your insurance company will have to pay the poor cyclist is $15k, no matter how badly you injure them.
The thing is, even a minor accident will likely swallow up that entire amount. If there is a trip to the hospital in an ambulance and a CT scan (which is common even when a head injury is not noted), you are looking at a seven thousand dollar bill. Add a broken collarbone and a few X-rays, and you just ate up the entirety of the policy.
Break a leg and, unless you can recover from the driver directly, you will owe money.
Of course, if you are encased in a giant SUV, you aren’t that likely to rack up big hospital bills when you hit something, but you are very likely to inflict them on anyone you hit.
The natural result is the never-ending escalation in the size of the vehicle, the societal rush to encase ourselves in ever-larger, ever-”safer” — for the driver — cages of steel.
–Erik Ryberg
February 1st, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Costs are very tricky in USA…
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:12 am
So why *isn’t* it more common to go after the driver’s assets? I remember (W A A A Y) back in HS drivers ed it was drilled in that carrying a proper amount of liability insurance was for *your* protection – to avoid losing your savings, car, house, or percentage of future wages. These days its commonly accepted that if the driver is un or underinsured you’re pretty much screwed even if the driver *isn’t* a pennyless bum, so you better carry an UN/UNDER policy as well.
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:22 am
Hi Scott,
For one thing, it costs a lot of money. If you’ve been hit by a motorist with the minimum amount of insurance, he or she probably doesn’t own anything that you can (a) legally take and (b) is worth much. Do you really want that crappy old Isuzu that he used to run you off the road and break your teeth? Do you want his old sofa? And are you willing to hire a lawyer to take it from him?
If the driver has assets, of course it’s a different story.
EBR
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:57 am
And if the driver has assets, they likely have much higher levels of insurance.
How long has the minimum been $15K? Seems like at the very least it should rise with the cost of health care each year.
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Oh, wow….tying the cost of
health care to the affordablity
of owning a car. It’s a legislative
thing. Car owners want their fellow
car owners to be responsible, but
not prohibitively responsible: a
symtom of the denial of the true
cost of automobiles.
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:22 pm
health insurance co.s charge the newly mangled their new prexisting health condition insurance rates. try that for a while. those rates suck.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Since a good bit of the cyclist and pedestrian population comes from groups that have little power* in this society, wouldn’t bearing a disproportionate cost be a civil rights issue?
*By groups that have little power, I mean children, elderly, and the poor.