VIEWS/THOUGHTS/OPINIONS: Compulsory insurance for Drivers

[Ae92typeX]

I support it fully 100%.

However, would like an affordable multi car insurance solution for those who own and drive several vehicles daily. I can already get personal coverage for any vehicle, but it costs more than 3x third parties at the mo.

imo wont really help the boyracer thing much, but remember bigger engined or turbo'd cars are much harder for young people to insure, so it 'may' limit what they can have illegal races in...its not all small engine shitters - plenty of big cash fast car people attend illegal activities- people with wof's rego's and $$$

[Bumpy]

Yea, I agree that it's a good idea, but again, the Insurance companies could very well take advantage of it!

And, a wof and rego is already compulsory when driving a car on the road, there is nothing stoping the people who breach those conditions to drive without compulsory insurance ...

The Government need to really put their thinking caps on and change some things about licensing!

[slonlo]

i think making all full licenced drivers resit a full licence test every 5->10 years just to make sure people still follow the rules, know any rule changes ect

if you loose your licenceeg demerit points , you should have to sit your full again

[Mr.Phreak]

Knowing the rules and following them are two very different beasts.

They should force everyone to ride a motorbike for 4 odd years before they can get their car license.

[Emz]

I think compulsary 3rd party is a good idea in theory. It would be nice to know that if you got hit by someone they would be able to front up with insurance to repair your car!
But practially I think that it would just cause insurance premiums to go up and insurance companies to take advantage so everyone will lose. I don't think it would be done as part of your rego, separate to insurance companies coz that would basically mean LTSA would have to become an insurance company too? lol

I also don't think its going to do anything at all to help with the 'boyracer'problem. Your age and the type of car you're driving doesnt affect your 3rd party insurance premuims much, so theres still not much incentive to make sure you keep a clean driving record! That and the fact (as has been brought up before) that some of them don't even bother with wof and reg so why should insurance be any different

I believe that one of the reasons for idiots in fast cars is the ease of getting finance for it! So many people cannot afford to pay their loans back, yet they don't seem to care and keep taking more credit to get bling for their cars, whilst the finance companies sit back and laugh.

So true about how they keep getting more finance. Its actually a pain in the butt thou when we repo cars where the owners have gone out and financed mags and engine mods using the car as security because it creates all sorts of problems when we try to sell it due to all the bloody hooks in it!

[Emz]

if you loose your licenceeg demerit points , you should have to sit your full again

hey thats a good idea!

[Barks]

Put a huge steel spike in the centre of every steering wheel in every car in the country. No-one will EVER go faster than 30km/h....

And that's my (de)constructive comment for this thread

[Bling]

disagree with it.

those of us that pay insurance shouldn't be affected by this, so my thought is that a seperate entity is setup thats sole purpose is to provide 3rd party insurance to people that can NOT prove they already have at least 3rd party cover.

this just an idea anyways, would never happen

[method]

if you loose your licenceeg demerit points , you should have to sit your full again

hey thats a good idea!

But the license test is so easy. I nearly lost my license but when i went for my full i didn't loose any marks.

Its not that i cant drive, i took the risk and chose to speed.

1. increase driving age? too many immature drivers out there.
2. compulsory driving schools? maybe a couple of classes could really tighten up driving skills.
3. restrictions on what vehicles can be owned by age.. ie under 18 nothing above a 1.5/1.6, over 18 go for gold as you're an adult.
4. more moderation and stricter oversight on the lending to young people?

Do you really think people with no wof/reg that do hit and runs will do all that? They will drive anyway. All it does is make it a bigger hassle for legit drivers.

But i do agree with all your points, i just dont believe it will change the lower quartile of drivers, just make the majority better. Which isn't bad at all. But you need to remember the minority is the problem we need to fix first!

They should class cars by power, no 15 year old needs anything over 60 or so hp. Im sure many of you are happy with the 100 odd hp your 4ages make too. Of course you can still speed but you're not going to get far with a holden behind you.

3rd party insurance must be compulsory too. Too many people don't have insurance. Just because their car isn't worth anything doesn't mean they don't need insurance. Thats a very popular misconception. Also they think they will never crash...

[matt dunn]

I think compulsary 3rd party is a good idea in theory. It would be nice to know that if you got hit by someone they would be able to front up with insurance to repair your car!

If you have full insurance it does not matter if the person that runs into you is insured or not. Your Insurance company pays and them it's up to your insurance company to get the money out of them.
If they can't, the insurance company looses, not you.

It wil have no effect on boy ricers,
It will just get added onto their finance contract.

Toughen up on the fines would be better.

"If you dont want to pay your fines, just rack up aboput $20k worth, then go to court and the judge will let you off"

With things like that, why would you pay your fines?

They need to toughen up the laws.

Better to say anyone that recieves more than $xxx amount of fines in a year looses their liscence for a set time,
and any car driven by an disqualified or unliscenced driver get's the car impounded reguardless of who owns it and held untill they get their lisecnce back or pay their fines.

Parents would have to make sure their Disqualified kids dont drive their cars,
Friends the same etc etc.

They would be too scared to do illegal stuff for fear of loosing their car.

They'd have to invest in some pretty big storage yards.

[Loudtoy]

Lets see, if your a true "boy racer" you won't have insurance at the moment. If 3rd part insurance was made compulsorary that would mean that in order for it to be effective you would need to have
a) a licence and keep it or if it was to be lost not drive - probably not likely to happen
b) a car witha wof and rego and always in a condition that it could get a wof and rego - that means no chopped springs, no bald tires etc etc
c) List all mods with your insurance company so they know what they are insuring.

Now how many of you have tried to tell your insurance company what mod's you had done to your car and got them to put it in writing that it was such. I know when i had one of my cars it took them 1 year and 10 copies of my insurance policy to get all the mods listed on it - worst thing was the mods only consisted of being lowered, wheels, intake and exhaust.
So imho it won't work, the ones who don't have any insurance now will be made to pay for something that won't work for them anyways because the insurace companied will wiggle out of it. The rest of us will be shafted with premiums that will probably nearly double because of having to pay for those with cars that are borderline and will probably cause/be in accidents.

The graduated driver licencing thing is a good idea so long as there is a harsher penalty than a fine for disobeying the rules imposed on you for that licence, otherwise learners will just get there learners licence then drive whatever, whenever and with whomever they feel like and add it to the tab of fines they already have.
So to make the licence system we currently have in place work i suggest instant impounding for 28 days cars driven by those outside the conditions set out in there licence for the 1st offence and impounded and crushed for second offence - losing licence for anything should mean the offender has to resit the full licence test again before being given back his/her licence. Oh and last of all instead of getting fines wiped and having to do community service maybe make those with outstanding fines serve in the armed forces for a time preiod of days say three dollar value in fines devided by 3, meaning that if you owed $3000 in fines you would have to serve 3000 days in the army, navy or airforce with pay after the amount of fine owed being paid as a wage - that may well stop offending and would definately mean the fines would be paid one way or another.

Pretty much the things above are a pipe dream - much like the compulsorary insurance i thinks

[flygt4]

doesnt take much to lose your license now actually. theres a lot of white collar people bussing to work
thats half the reason these munters accrue so many fines as they continue to flout the law when disqualified.
i think it should have comparable punishment to contempt of court, or loss of license treated as a probation, if you are caught driving while disq., then instant jailtime

they dont care if their shitbox gets impounded, theyll get another one. go after the driver, not the car

[rolla_fxgt]

In my opinion most of the munters who do burnouts esp, but also actually cause cause most of the problems drive shit buckets that arent worth bugger all.
So if 3rd party insurance was made compulsary this would make the cost of ownership slightly more expensive. A good thing. & if a car is found with no insurance, instant confiscation & impound & its crushed.

Also i reackon instead of cc/power requirements the government should make a minimum price level of say $5000 for purchase of a car for those under 20. No parent is gona want to fork out $5000 every couple of months for a new car, so their kids will soon learn.
I know because i had saved so hard to buy my FXGT when i was 18, & paid $10,000 for it 8 years ago, i wasn't going to do anything stupid to risk loosing it or my money. So if the price of a car is relatively exspensive then any sane person isn't going to risk it.

But i agree the govt needs to tighten up the whole finance sector, not just cars. There's too many cowboys, too easy finance & all up it just ads to inflation

[method]

Fines dont work, its just going to cause more problems in the long run.

Having 20k to pay off isnt exactly nice. And it wont make them any better, they obviosuly dont learn.

They should have a demerit system, but instead of just loosing your license you loose your car too.

No car to drive, no problems. Of course they can get another or borrow but then that would just get taken off them.

And not just for 30 days. If you loose your car the second or third time it gets sold.

Fines cause problems, you have to remove the source of the problem, the car.

[Cahuna]

I'm all for compulsory 3rd party insurance but I doubt it will help the problem. Resitting licences won't do a thing, although most NZ drivers have the skills of an amoeba behind the wheel it is still sufficient to pilot a car safely on our roads.

Taking cars away won't be a deterrent, the "boy racer" on Campbell Live the other night said as much. Youngsters don't care about the cost of finance, they'll just go buy another car (or get mummy and daddy to buy them another). The munters who do skids in chopped/lowered $300 sh*tboxes won't have problems with getting another disposable car. Might John Rae doing "wheelies" in his AMG Merc though

Power/weight calcs on car ownership are hard to enforce when I could get a standard FXGT, change the computer/cams/head and significantly increase the power without it being visible to any testing officers. Australia has similar regimes in Victoria and NSW where lists of cars are banned, L-Platers can drive a Lotus Elise but not a new nana-spec Volvo (the Volvo has a low-pressure turbo so it must be dangerous). And it stops kids from driving their parents cars, even when the family can't afford a second car for little Johnny to drive himself. It's another sledgehammer to crack a walnut solution.

IMO, until something is done to change the attitude of drivers things won't change. That applies equally to Joe Average (who overtake in stupid spots, don't stop for red lights, don't give way, cut into queues, take naps at 100km/h, drink-drive etc etc) and the boy racers (I own the roads and am entitled to do whatever the hell I like). The day that the cops start throwing people in jail for acting like arrogant pr*cks on the road is the day that the public might wake up and understand that being entitled to drive a car on a public road is a priviledge, not a right. And then it doesn't matter what car they choose to drive or what insurance they have.

Nothing less will stop the boy racers.

[Stealer Of Souls]

Nothing will stop them.

I'm for compulsory insurance as it will get a few of them off the road. I'm sure there are a number of law-abiding street racers out there who will front up and follow the compulsory insurance rules.
I think to back this up they'll need some serious punishments for breaking the rules, and they need to enforce the rules.

I agree that an attitude correction is require first and foremost.

But failing that, some additional (strictly enforced) rules will help to reduce the problem.
Like the australian "p" plate equivalent. Some rules to enforce the use of "L" and "P" plates if (and ONLY if) you have that type of license.

Purchase/registration restrictions based upon license/age/car type. That sort of stuff.

The answer isn't easy, everyone as a society (and probably all us enthusiasts in particular) needs to get on the band wagon and help to reduce this problem.

[TRD Man]

Apparently around 80,000 vehicles or so are being driven around with no form of insurance at all.

Here's something you'll find a little frightening.

About 4 or 5 years ago we invited a high ranking LTSA official to give a presentation to us at Kapiti Car Club.
A strange little man with an unfortunate disposition, he was without doubt the most boring speaker we've ever had there.

At the end of his speech he invited questions and I asked how many cars were on the road in NZ.

His reply was that "officially" we have a fleet of 3 million road going vehicles but LTSA's own estimation was that there were approximately another 1 million vehicles on the road which were neither registered nor warranted. (and uninsured)
He actually believed this to be quite amusing!

[Crampy]

The comment about having people PAYING off offences by serving time with the Military is interesting, but difficult.

I'm in the Air Force myself and we would have issues with Air worthiness. We need to have qualified people working on planes. We have to supevise people that are part way through their training, to help them build up experience, but to maintain air worthiness.

So, that would mean these people couldn't work on Aircraft or other military eqipment at all. So, put them somewhere else, sweet. Well, no.
We are so stretched with manning as we are, we can't afford to have people go play babysitter to young hoons.

The prison system is full, the police are stretched, so who can look after them???

In Australia, they can't own a turbo vehicle or V8 as young drivers (so my mate tells me). Tha'ts a good start, but can be improved on.
Hell, my first car was a 1600 carbed Mitsi Cordia. That served me well and it was SLOW as hell, but all that I needed.


Also, is it just me, or when they show on TV hoons doing burnouts or causing trouble, they always seem to be in $hit box cars. Not high performance Skylines, or Supras or EVOs. The last footage I saw on TV3 was of what looked like a Nissan Patrol doing skids and other "normal" cars. These cars are easily insured, but turbo vehicles are not. So it's the drivers, not the damn cars. Just because you own a rear wheel drive turbo car, doesn't mean you've going to drift it aournd all the corners, or do a burnout at every set ot lights.

As the saying goes: Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

It's not the cars, it the people driving the damn things.

[Crampy]

Apparently around 80,000 vehicles or so are being driven around with no form of insurance at all.

Here's something you'll find a little frightening.

About 4 or 5 years ago we invited a high ranking LTSA official to give a presentation to us at Kapiti Car Club.
A strange little man with an unfortunate disposition, he was without doubt the most boring speaker we've ever had there.

At the end of his speech he invited questions and I asked how many cars were on the road in NZ.

His reply was that "officially" we have a fleet of 3 million road going vehicles but LTSA's own estimation was that there were approximately another 1 million vehicles on the road which were neither registered nor warranted. (and uninsured)
He actually believed this to be quite amusing!

Now that is crazy stuff, isn't it!

[pc]

We don't have a problem with rules or regulations etc. We already have plenty.
There is no deterent for the people who don't give a damn about anything... and these are the people causing the problems. As we don't have enough prisons to put people into, no-one goes to prison. therefore there is no real penalty for the real munters.

More regulation only inconveniences law abiding people.