Thursday, September 29, 2011

Vehicle Inspections

I was at a shopping mall the other day and when I went to the parking lot, I was amazed to find that another car had parked into / on my car.  After waiting an hour for the driver to return, I called the local sheriff (Norwalk Division) to report the incident.  When the officer came out, we still could not find the driver of this vehicle.  The car was then towed.  The next day I received a phone call from a detective that explained to me that the owner of the vehicle was trying to get his car out of impound.  He questioned whether or not the owner of the other vehicle had contacted me yet.  I explained to him that the owner had not contacted me and he stated he would get back with me.  Well, that did not happen.  In fact the gentleman’s car was actually released from impound and I never received any information on this owner – no license, no insurance name and/or policy, nothing. I was instructed to turn it over to my insurance company.  Well great!  Now my insurance company will process the claim I will be forced to pay my deductible and my rates will eventually go up.
For a long time California residents have been required to carry vehicle insurance at a very high rate - not to mention adding uninsured motorist which is the biggest rip off because even though you pay for it,  your rates will go up if you use it. There should not be any reason to have to have uninsured motorist insurance coverage if the governor and the law makers would enforce the laws already on the books and make it harder for people to drive without insurance and a license.  If you get a ticket for driving without a license, you go to court and you pay a fine and court fees because the court always gets their money! How about if you drive without insurance and you damage another vehicle or property? You must pay restitution to the insurance company and you lose your car for good,  plus the fine and jail time that most people would receive. 
As a kid, I remember my mother would go and have her car inspected at a California approved inspection site and they would inspect the windows, breaks, lights, smog equipment, wipers, registration, tires and horn.  If you complied, they would issue you a sticker to put in the window so that law enforcement would know you complied and at the time of inspection - that everything is in working condition and your registration was current.  Well what is so wrong with that process? However, let’s put a little spin on it! Let’s do all the above but add two items:  is there insurance on the automobile and does the register owner hold a valid driver’s license?
Again with the budget short fall every year why not give the people something in return for their money instead of just raising taxes and not knowing what it is going towards or not having any say to where the money is spent?  I would sure be willing to pay a small fee every time I registered my car to know that the other drivers on the road were also insured and carried a valid driver’s license. And if most cars were in good working condition it would generate jobs at the same time and would increase an estimated revenue of about  $1,200,000,000.00 every year based on 1980 study of 120 million cars on California highways at 10.00 dollars per year fee.

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