motorcyclebloggers.com

A couple of articles back, retrorider wrote an article about an academic opining on the relationship between motorcycles, required insurance, and teen deaths.  One of the things gleaned from it though was the current requirements for motorcycle insurance in Florida.  Check it:

You do not have to have MC insurance in Florida.
HOWEVER, if you do not wear a helmet, you must have at
least 10K in health insurance. If you wear a helmet
no need for insurance. If you do not have insurance
and are involved in an accident and it is YOUR fault,
you will receive a ticket for No Insurance and your
license will get suspended. I get alot of people
pulled over for speeding and they do not have a helmet
or 10K in health insurance so the officer writes a
ticket for NO MC Insurance (this is wrong, he should
have wrote a ticket for NO MC helmet). If the person
does not fight the ticket and they go and pay it, they
will get a letter in the mail saying their license has
been suspended. Best to get insurance if you ride a
MC in Florida. Get Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist
(UM) and get as much as you can afford and “stack it”
if you have other vehicles in the household that also
have UM. Also, you should get “Medpay” on your MC
policy and as much of that as you can afford. If I
had to guess, almost 50% of people on the road today
do not have insurance or do not have enough.

This was provided by a lawyer friend of one of our seven readers named ‘mcstanger’, both whom are FL residents.  Reading this I have a one word comment - WHY?  Why is it that a state does not require motorcycle insurance, yet penalize you significantly for not having it.  I know a lot about Florida, and its arguably the greatest ‘States Rights’ representation, given its excellent CCW and state income tax laws (none) to name a few. 

I’m not sure if that concept was how this crap was sold, but you don’t have to be a genious to forecast bogged down courts and expanded police revenue generation.  The part that pisses me off the most is the fact that the rider loses their license if in an accident without insurance and at fault.  This is not because I think the penalty is unjust, but rather the fact that no one, NO ONE stops driving when their license is suspended (ask me how I know).  These riders will just ride / drive ‘more carefully’.

To me, it just seems…to quote Spock…illogical.  I cannot imagine that its effective or efficient either.  What I am guessing is that this makes the state a helluva lot of money.  God knows states need there money from its folks - one way or another. 

The other RUB in this quote above is the concet of uninsured/underinsured insurance.  Life is a game, and if you want to play (on our public roads) you must take the reaponsibility to be able to pay (via insurance) if you put other out and are at fault.  The need to pay additional fees as part of your poicy because of other’s inadequacies just pisses me off.

The reality is that as a teen I would probably ride a motorcycle without insurance.  The fact is that teens don’t have a lot of cash, must pay high insurance rates (because they drive like asses), and rarely have the wisdom to think abut self-responsibility over saving some cash.