>>>>>> Several years ago I waged a campaign for pay by day auto insurance. I
>>>>>> contacted insurance companies, the American Federation of Cyclists,
>>>>>> the Energy Efficient Economy Inst., etc.
>>>>>> The argument was it would clear vehicles from the streets. Americans
>>>>>> like a car parked out in the driveway but they don't like 24/7 the
>>>>>> overhead.
>>>>>> A year or so later _Harpers_ ran a piece on pay by mile.
>>>>>> Progress happens.
>>>>> It's just another artificial
>>>> Electroninc communication is artificial too.
>>>>> constraint
>>>> If you don't want pay by mile just keep your conventional policy.
>>>> It's an _option_.
>>>>> on people's ability to form a
>>>>> viable community and society.
>>>> Pay by mile encourages public transportation and cycling which in turn
>>>> encourages community. My experiences in the past 13 hours confirm
>>>> that.
>>>>> Your's is a anti-democratic
>>>> Pay by mile doesn't interfer with universal suffrage.
>>>>> and anti-liberty mindset.
>>>> What about freedom from insurance premiums?
>>> No clue why anyone would object to this.
>
>> That poster is nuts. �Even oil industry shills will keep their mouths
>> shut on the matter.
>
>> Geico already has a ~ 20%% discount if you drive less than 3,000 miles/
>> year.
>
>> Texas has some $100/year plan for show cars that are driven less than
>> some distance a year.
>
>> Maybe he confused health insurance for high risk patients with driving
>> a lot.
>
>> The difference is a lot (most?) of health care costs doesn't hinge on
>> personal behaviour.
>
>>> More driving means more risk,
>>> less driving less.
>
>> The advantage of pay by day is you'ld pay more to drive when it was
>> dangerous, 4th of July and New Year's, and less when it was safe,
>> morning rush hour traffic.
>
>> Also there is no way to cheat pay by day. � You phone in when you need
>> the vehicle and then drive. �If you don't phone in and you are
>> stopped, you have no insurance and your car is impounded.
>> With pay by mile it's either high tech or they'll roll back the
>> odometer.
>> Moreover many miles on the freeway might be safer than a few miles in
>> town.
> Easy enough to put in an encrypted odometer that transmits mileage
> every so often.
Requires retrofitting older cars and/or working with brain dead motor
companies for new vehicles.
> You pay up front for a specific number of miles and
> then you get billed or credited every month like a credit card.
True for any partial insurance, pay by time or pay by mile.
> If you want to distinguish between highway and local, you just have it
> record trip miles by noting engine on and off �events, as well as
> speed. Not exactly that rocket science.
But more than enough to slow progress.
Once a bureaucrat at DOT helped me get a clue as to the difficulty of
change. He gave me a short history of legalizing the rear windshield
brake light -- as low tech as you can get.
They took two sister Carribean islands and outfitted all the cars on
one with the mono brake light in the rear window. The one with the
extra light recorded fewer accidents per passenger mile yet they
_still_ had trouble getting it accepted.
Pay by time eliminates all arguments against partial insurance.
Bret Cahill
