Uninsured Motorists

Went into my auto insurance company last week with the intention to lower my costs because I drive much, much less than I used to. Yet I ended up paying more going forward.

This is the dirty little secret about bike, bus and train commuting in suburbia -- you still need your car. You still need multiple cars. Not only are you shelling out money for bicycle tyres and train tickets, you are pretty much fucked when it comes to registration and car insurance in California -- you can't appreciably change the premium even if you only drive it once a month.

What I did to raise my costs is to finally carry uninsured motorists (UM/UIM). I did this not as a motorist, but as a bicyclist. In California, per Insurance Code Section 11580.2, the coverage flows to you, not to your insured car. If I get hit on my bicycle by an underinsured motorist, I can make a claim against my own policy to cover the costs of my broken bones, resetting my jaw, pain and suffering, co-pays, surgeon pre-op visits, etc. The same would apply if I'm on my unicycle, stilts, recumbent, horse, or pack mule.

I brought this to the attention of my insurance company, Allstate, and the agent lady summarily dismissed this idea. "No f-ing way," her eyes read, as she really became annoyed with my questioning. Grudgingly she said she'd follow up with this to her claims department, which to her surprise she was told that yes, this coverage applies to bicyclists and even joggers and pedestrians in the street. It's bodily injury arising out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of an uninsured motor vehicle in the state, not just your motor vehicle.

The only thing about all this is that this doesn't apply to a hit and run...because the way I read the insurance code, UM/UIM hit and run only applies to bodily injury as a result of contact while I'm in my insured car. One way I can try to protect myself from this situation is to never ride in the dark and to only ride in traffic with lots of potential witnesses...which I do anyway.

There are varying statistics floating around out there, but apparently 16% of our state's drivers are uninsured. My guess, as I'm bicycling through South Sacramento, is that that percentage is much larger.

As shitty as it sounds, having to increase my auto insurance as I drive less, this is the price I pay for living in Autocentric America. Insurance, registration, smog fees and the like are areas that are always the targets of our legislature because to increase the use tax (read: gas tax) is political suicide in a nation beholden to their cars.