As a result of a high rate of collisions, drivers must pay higher insurance rates. But don't blame the insurance companies. The insurance company pays for damages and injuries caused by drivers who cause accidents, and that cost is ultimately spread out and shared by all insured drivers, who must carry insurance by law or face fines of thousands of dollars. Ultimately, the insurance industry should have final say in how student drivers are qualified for insurance discounts.

Without auto insurance, however, there is no efficient traffic system, for part of which motivates drivers to follow the system rules is the fact that if they don't, and have an "at-fault" collision as a result, their auto insurance rates will increase significantly, on top of any fines, injury and downtime.

Without a traffic system, with rules and regulations, drivers simply drive according to simple common rules such as 'first-come-first-served'. But if you can imagine every intersection, including the one's with traffic lights, operating like four-way stops, you can imagine what traffic is like in places where the laws for insurance are non-existent or not enforced properly. So with insurance requirements and a traffic system, we move quickly and conveniently over great distances.

But all it takes is one accident to jam up the roads and clog traffic, and reduce the system to a standstill. And the cause of the accidents is a lack of proper education and training.

But you cannot blame individual drivers for not having all of the knowledge and skills they need to drive if the government issues driving licenses to those who don't have all of the necessary skills and knowledge. It is therefore an elected government's responsibility on behalf of drivers and the public in general to ensure that drivers are properly trained and educated before they are issued licensed to drive, or at the very least before issuing a qualifying certificate for driver education.

Because it is the insurance provider and their clients who ultimately suffer the most and stand to benefit the most, driver education, and particularly whom shall qualify from a driver education program, should be designed and regulated by the insurance industry itself. And because we are dealing with traffic education rather regulation the driver education programs should be designed in conjunction with the government department of education rather than the department of transportation. 

Low auto insurance rates

There is only one factor in lower auto insurance rates: The way you learned to drive. Currently, the high collision rate is also the cause of high insurance rates. The cost of damages caused by drivers who cause collisions is spread out through all drivers. But there are two ways to look at the high collision rate: a) drivers are being careless, reckless and taking unnecessary, aggressive risks. Or b) drivers have not been fully educated or trained well enough on the issues of motor vehicle traffic that cause the collisions, before they are issued a drivers license.

The driving program

Initially, the government, on behalf of the citizens who they were elected by, was interested in doing something about the rate of motor vehicle collisions, so they created the driver education program.

The problem was paying for it, and so they turned to private industry. To motivate people to take driving lessons and pay for the lessons with their own hard-earned cash, the governments created the certificate program.

By completed the driver training program and acquiring the government-issued certificate, the applicant was thus qualified for an insurance discount.

Choosing to cause accidents

It's not just a matter of individual drivers choosing to drive safe, because all of the proper attitude and attention in the world will not prevent an accident if you don't have all of the necessary knowledge and skills, so just because you have the right attitude doesn't mean you won't cause an accident

An administrator of a department of transportation, responsible for the regulation of driving schools, once wrote in a report that he did not believe is was possible for a student driver to be hostile and uncooperative, believing instead that they simply are all nervous.

The difference between a nervous student and a reckless student is obvious to anyone, but administrators from the department of transportation don�t have any experience or background as driving instructors, and are never present in the car with the instructors and students except on rare occasion during an audit. There is no recourse for an instructor to deal with a reckless, aggressive student and this is another example of catering to the demands of the public, rather than providing them with the disciplined training they need to drive safely.
 

How you drive determines what you pay

Many drivers learn to drive "intuitively," which means they "feel" their way, driving by "gut instinct" and "intuition".

This approach causes many accidents, because what feels safe may not necessarily be safe, and what feels unsafe may in fact be quite safe.

For example, some drivers are afraid to accelerate to traffic speed before merging, simply because it feels unsafe to accelerate so much so quickly. But that's the way the system was designed, so that's what drivers must do. To do other than what is required by the traffic "system" is what causes accidents.

Who taught you how to drive?

Think carefully about this question. Most people learn to drive from their parents or other immediate family. So you have to wonder how adequately you were taught. Chances are whoever taught you how to drive didn't have all the facts and figures. And chances are you learned a lot about driving simply by doing it, learning by trial and error and by experimentation.

Of course, the only way to learn how to drive properly, in a way that will not cause your insurance to rise as the result of an at fault accident is by professional trainers through a professional driver education program. Unfortunately, driver education programs are failing to teach properly.

Wherever you drive.

Thank you for visiting Drivers Advocate.org

LINKS:

National Government driving website