>>>>>>> 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.
Nope, it can all be done using GPS, stupid.
And that allows the system to charge a different rate for high risk and low risk roads and freeways too.
>> 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.
Only for the fools that havent got a clue about the technology.
> Once a bureaucrat at DOT helped me get a clue
Not even possible.
> 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.
Nope. Because there is no way to ensure that everyone will always be insured when driving.
