Hello all! Quick intro and question for you!

General Discussion
41

No, I meant what I said:

(bolded by me for emphasis)

Again, I don’t have the statistics handy, though they’re probably easily accessible via Google search (or even searched on this forum. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has posted them in the past). I’m sure the statistics compare restrained vs unrestrained drivers. Most, if not all, ECUs take driver and passenger belted vs unbelted status into account in an accident when they determine whether to fire the airbags or not.

What compact care can’t achieve speeds higher than 40 mph for crash testing if they would do higher speed testing???

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42

Your pick. Computers are never wrong you know. Now as far as people programming them . . .

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43

Yeah. On average. So not guaranteed, but a decent chance. That’s how statistics work.

In short, you’re worried about something that is incredibly unlikely to happen to you, or anyone else. It’d be much more rational to worry about decidedly more emergent dangers, such as the epidemic of red light running and street racing.

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44

Greetings, Julie

I wish you all success.  I'm not well-informed on the history of the website, but a professional woman's perspective is always an asset.
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45

I too have Geico, but do everything online and by phone. My friend is using a local agent and he’s paying about 10% more. I don’t begrudge the agents as they do have to make a living but
I’ve yet to need an agent having not had any accidents.
Just my experience. No judgement either way.

46

That 10 % could be many things such as- Annual driving miles - rate for vehcle - age of home - even distance to fire hydrant - credit rating - paying by month or in full at renewal - unless you are comparing apples to apples you just can’t say it is the agent.

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47

When you have a wreck, the person you deal with is the claims adjuster. You usually only get your agent involved when the claims adjuster is being a jerk about it.

48

When he told me what he was paying, I went online and found a 10% price cut bypassing the agent.

49

Never had an accident, car stolen, nor any reason to deal with my insurance company rather than making payment.

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50

You sure about the flu statistic? That’s a fatality rate of 1.5%, assuming that’s just those who contract the flu. If you mean the odds of anyone contracting and dying of the flu, it’s more on the order of a dozen per 100,000 people.

Agreed on the rest though. I’ve complained about feature creep on modern cars, and I’ve received responses along the lines of “if one life is saved, it’s worth it”. That sounds good, but it isn’t really a reasonable position - there’s no such thing as eliminating risk, so what remains is reasonable precautions to mitigate risk. Loading cars with more and more technology to reduce the last little sliver of risk at the cost of making new cars unaffordable to the masses is, IMHO, not worth it - because it would end up forcing most people into older cars that don’t have those features anyway.

Maybe this would be a good topic?

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51

@strickerj I think there is considerable merit in this topic. Many of the newest cars have so many facets that make them more expensive. I do see each manufacturer trying to also offer excellent safety features in this baseline models, but top-of-the-line is called that for a reason.

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52

@william969 Thanks!

53

My Pleasure.
William Cole

54

Agree no matter how much the risk is reduced there will always be STUPID people that can be counted on to do the wrong thing.

[quote=“strickerj, post:50, topic:180065”]
last little sliver of risk at the cost of making new cars unaffordable to the masses is, IMHO, not worth it - because it would end up forcing most people into older cars that don’t have those features anyway
Also agree,

Also agree.

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55

Geico does that.
Had a minor accident a few years ago (after 25 years with them).
Rates went up when the other party sued and Geico was not even interested in defending themselves (me) in court. “Cheaper to just pay” they said.
Sure enough, next renewal, they raised the rates.
Left them for another carrier.
Told them I was leaving. They didn’t care.
After I left, the phone calls, text messages, emails and snail mail messages started.
Got a quote.
Lower than before the accident.
Went back.
No further incidents.
Next renewal, back up again.
Stopped playing games.
Now I won’t go back if they paid me.

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56

If you didn’t think you were responsible then there are ways to appeal this to your states insurance board.

57

Just a little perspective… if we compare car prices and value from 1970 to 2020 (to avoid the Covid inflated car prices) we have…

Average car price 1970, $3542 (inflation adjusted price of $24,894 in 2020 dollars), the lifespan of which is 100,000 miles, that shows rust holes in 3 years, requiring at least 3x the maintenance cost of a modern car with crank windows, manual locks, manual seats, no AC, no cruise control and a mono-AM/FM radio likely getting about 13 MPGs spewing unbreathable gasses out the tailpipe.

Average car price in 2020, $38723, the lifespan of which is at least 150,000 miles, doesn’t show body rust for 10-15 years, requiring less maintenance, equipped with AC, power locks, windows, seats, cruise, AC, stereo w Bluetooth, airbags, TPMS, ABS, Stability Control, Traction Control, getting 28 MPGs, blowing 0.5% or less of the pollutants of the 1970 vehicle.

In summation… For 59% more money, we get at least 50% more life (if not far more) out of a far nicer, far safer, more economical and far cleaner car. I can accept that.

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