I'm curious about the insurance aspect of this, do people buying $1000 cars forego insurance?

wildzzz 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

You get the absolute bare minimum required by your state, it basically just covers the other driver you hit. It's pretty awful since if you are badly injured beyond what their underinsured driver's coverage is for, you're likely not going to get a lot of money. You'll definitely get everything their policy states but the remainder comes out of your own uninsured motorist coverage and health insurance. People that buy bare minimum coverage typically don't have a lot of assets so there'll be nothing to recover from them directly.

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JohnFen 5 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I just carry liability. There's no point in comprehensive coverage on such a car. My car insurance costs about $500/yr.

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dghlsakjg an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

At that tier you buy minimum coverage liability. That coverage is pretty cheap, but even so, many choose to risk it.

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hn993302 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Supposedly about 20% of drivers in El Paso are uninsured, so yes?

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firesteelrain an hour ago | parent [-]

Texas needs to be stricter about this and start suspending licenses

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trollbridge an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Suspending licences doesn't stop people from driving anymore than not having insurance doesn't.

	▲	firesteelrain an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It’s a deterrence and enforcement mechanism. Because if you get pulled over, you might go to jail in some states.

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hn993302 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's higher in Los Angeles. And I don't know if they have licenses. What I've heard is if they get in an accident and can't drive away, they run away on foot and report the car stolen. That doesn't explain how they avoid getting pulled over.

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omgwtfbyobbq 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Usually, normal insurance is reasonable, or if it's not, you get liability only because the difference in cost is enough to buy another car after a few years.

Unfortunately there's a fair bit if industry built around charging people who are stretched financially more, but it's possible to avoid that.

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hn993302 an hour ago | parent [-]

Having more wealth if anything has had me buy less insurance. My newer car is liability only. Worst case if it blows up, I can afford a cheap replacement that I've already more than saved up for by not paying full coverage.

Also, that $4K cash for clunkers was a lot. I agree with the author, that would've totally gone into my pocket if they did it today. I still have my old car from college that's worth about $500 now, purchased for $1500, and I don't need it.

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yojo an hour ago | parent | next [-]

If you can afford to eat the loss, don’t insure it.

Obviously insurance companies make money on average for every policy. If they didn’t, they would go bankrupt. So on average, every time you buy insurance, you lose.

So insure only what’s required by law, or things that would throw your life off track if they vanished.

	▲	hn993302 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yep. Which is also why I find vision insurance ridiculous. No it doesn't cover me going blind, it covers a pair of glasses at best, more like 25% of one.

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omgwtfbyobbq an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My insurance is getting to the point where I might do the same. My car is worth maybe a third of what it was new, and my monthly insurance bill is the same, it's nuts. I may go with a significantly higher deductible as a compromise.

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WalterBright an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I've eschewed collision insurance, and what I've saved on those premiums is far more than the cars were worth.

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Dig1t an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I drove a $1000 car for a long time back in my poor days. You could get minimum liability insurance for $50/month or even less. Just whatever you needed to be able to drive legally. Thankfully I was never in any crashes but I always drove with the expectation that crashing would be financially ruinous and tried to be extra careful.

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doubleg72 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They typically carry liability