despite ICBC i keep trying.....

For years now i have parked my car and taken the insurnace off for months at a time. Do i get any support from ICBC for doing this? NO.

In fact i get "fined" in the form of having to purchase new licence plates. It is not an option to turn in your decals. Why we can't just peel them off and bring them in to the insurance agent when you cancel is a mystery to me. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy the whole year and then cancel it. The less time you buy insurance for-the more expensive it is. The rates are set up for to encourage buying for the year.

Conversly if you just don't renew your insurance and let it expire, ICBC seems to have no problem with you retaining your license plates when you do renew your insurance.

I drive my car as little as possible. My yearly kms. is low yet there is no adjustment in my rate at all.
I pay the same as someone who drives their car for hours every day of the year.

I asked the local insurance agent why they can't read odometers as one way of determining the rate.
She stated that nobody has time to do this!
This was curious as every time i walk past the insurance agent-there are either no customers or there are only 1 or 2 customers and two agents.

This Holiday season for those of us who still have cars, make it a green one and try to take transit and/or walk a few times instead of jumping into the car-the planet will thank you.

Happy Holidays to Tyee staff, readers and commentators.

Its great when the ivory

Its great when the ivory towers of academia encourage the panacea of increased taxation.

Would the fact that Translink has all but ignored south of the Fraser communities be applied in this equation?

The myopic self serving view of the powerful on the Translink board has led to an unusable Transit system in my area, yet I should pay more taxes because I need to drive.

But I guess help was on the way until Translink was disbanded. Translinks final report said they were going to start making major improvements south of the Fraser in 30 years. Thanks. I’m really glad the sanctimonious leaders north of the Fraser gave us a little something to chew on. It’s going to be real sad seeing that pillar of democracy, that nobody ever voted for, gone.

I pay taxes to a regional Transit board that has all but ignored my area. Then I'm taxed extra, above and beyond the regional norm, by the same people because I need to use a car. Fantastic.

More Tax

I know an airline employee that lives in the large and growing South Surrey/White Rock area, as do many airline employees. For them to go to YVR by transit with two bags of luggage would take a couple of hours based on connections. Then 'work' a flight across to Asia or Europe for another 10-14hrs? They already pay a Translink tax on the extra gasoline they have to buy to get to work.

This idea of Whitehead and Frank is typical of the kind of closet thinking that falls flat on its face because a huge factor has been ommitted (as per JIm's post above).

The idea is also presented in a disingenuous manner with the silly statement, "'You will not pay more but you may pay less'". Wrong. Insurance rates are based on money coming in and money going out. So if less is coming in from some then more will have to come in from the others. IE. rates will go up.

If people want to save they can do many things such as insure for 'pleasure use only', etc. and they can buy hybrid vehicles and save on the Translink taxes by buying less gasoline.

Were these guys also responsible for that other great idea on Tyee earlier this week of hydrogen buses with the fuel bought in, 5,000 kilometers by diesel trucks, from Quebec?

This plan is a scam drawn up by academics that don't live in the real world.

Pay-as-you-drive insurance and Driverless Pods at Heathrow

As long as full pay-as-you-drive/per-km auto insurance is optional and total premiums collected from the per-km group always match total payouts attributable to the per-km group, how can anyone complain?

The technical side of the local transportation issue is taking an interesting turn. Heathrow airport is testing 18 four-passenger, battery-powered "Driverless Pods" to transport passengers from a parking lot to a new terminal building. In additon to 4 passengers, each pod can carry luggage, bikes, strollers, etc. The pods are also called Driverless Taxis or Personal Rapid Transit Systems. They're designed for suburban use too.

See:
http://www.atsltd.co.uk
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2007/12/17/harris.uk.airport.pod.itn
http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=905187420

The system is basically a horizontal elevator on wheels. You get in, sit down, push a button and it takes you where you want to go. Every day, elevators carry many millions of passengers. Because elevators are completely automated, very few passengers are injured. Elevator-related insurance costs are trivial.

Consider a hi-rise building that has a huge shopping mall on the lower floors, condos in the middle and restaurants on top. Now imagine if the designers of the building decided to install a few huge public elevators with 100-passenger capacity that ran only every half hour during the day and didn't run at all between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. There would be elevator operators who could go on strike at any time and effectively shut down the building. How popular would that be? Not very. With such an inefficient, unreliable public elevator, each apartment owner would want their own personal elevator. Private elevator shafts would occupy half the building space. Crazy? That's exactly how a typical public transit system works. It's even worse in the suburbs.

Heathrow's Driverless Pods can travel over flat, paved surfaces. They currently use a laser guidance system and a raised curb on each side of their lane. But a GM-sponsored driverless vehicle recently won a contest to navigate a 96.5km city-like course with ordinary roads, traffic lights, other vehicles etc. 10 other driverless vehicles also completed the course.

See http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/11/05/tech-darpa-urban.html

Many of the driverless vehicles in the race used a navigational technology from Applanix Corp. of Richmond Hill, ON that is already used by cities to precisely map municipal infrastructure. Autonomous/driverless vehicles are expected to be in fairly mainstream military use by 2015 in order to reduce the loss of life caused by roadside bombs. In Canada, idiot drivers kill almost 3,000 people a year outright and permanently maim many others. The issue is similar except that the number of casualties caused each year by idiot drivers in North America alone is ten times higher than the casualties caused by roadside bombs.

Just wondering, if this

Just wondering, if this car-sharing idea really catches on, would this have an impact on ICBC?
For the 3000 km I drive a year, I realize my annual $900 insurance premium should be enough of an incentive to get rid of my vehicle. Haven't arrived at that point yet. I do think "kilometers driven" should be taken into account as an "incentive" for not driving unnecessarily.

Why can't I move the license plate around?

Here's another creative idea: Have the insurance follow the person, not the vehicle.

I have a 20-year old pickup truck as my daily driver. Why? Because I use it on the weekend for Home Depot runs to fix up my old house, and drive it to the cottage several times a year. I'd love to use a fuel efficient car the rest of the week, but I can't afford to insure two vehicles, so I drive the polluter. Why can't I just pay for one insurance package and move the license plate from a fuel-efficient car to the truck when I need it, and back to the car when I'm commuting? I obviously can't drive two vehicles at once, and my polluter would sit parked most of the time.

Congratulations

Congratulations! VancouverIAM.com has chosen this blog article as one of the top articles in Vancouver for December 19, 2007. The Vancouver Daily Blog Review can be found on NowPublic.com

Per-km risk vs per-year risk: dispelling the self-serving myths.

...Sunday-or worse yet, once-a-month drivers are more dangerous than those who drive every day

That's a crock. I spent 4 years commuting between Port Coquitlam and North Vancouver 2-3 hours per day. Then I spent another 4 years commuting between PoCo and South Richmond. I have now arranged things so I seldom need to drive. During all these years of driving, I have never once caused a collision - not even a minor fender-bender.

Your perception of part-time drivers' skills may be related to the fact that many part-time drivers are retired people and their lack of driving skills is caused by declining vision and declining reflexes rather than lack of recent experience.

You are confusing collison rates per km with absolute collision rates per year. It's not the same thing. Some part-time drivers do have a higher collision rate per km than daily drivers, but their absolute collision rate per year is still much lower than a person who does a huge amount of driving. This is the reason why drivers in their 80s have overall annual collision rates similar to teenagers despite the fact that octagenerians' collision rates per km are higher than teenagers' rates per km. Teenagers drive more than geezers. If we remove the teenagers and geezers from the equation, middle-aged people who drive a lot crash more often per year than middle-aged people who drive occasionally.

You are also ignoring the fatigue factor behind many collisions. A recent study found that doctors' car crash rates are double the average rate due to the fact that they are often overworked to the point of not getting enough sleep. When I had to drive from my job in North Vancouver to my home in Port Coquitlam after a long day's work plus overtime, with inadequate sleep the night before, I was far less alert than I am now when I occasionally schedule my driving for first thing Sunday morning after a good night's sleep when there's very little traffic on the roads and the Saturday night drunks are still sleeping it off.

A further factor to consider is that different drivers pay different per-km insurance rates depending on their individual driving records.

But no matter how you view it, as long as per-km insurance is optional and the total amount of insurance premiums collected from per-km drivers equals or exceeds the total amount of payouts attributable to per-km drivers, why should you care? Why would it be any of your business? If you are still against a per-km insurance option, then you obviously feel that your are currently getting a free ride on someone else's back and you want that free ride to continue.

Bigger paycheque for you, higher insurance for others.

I know an airline employee that lives in the large and growing South Surrey/White Rock area, as do many airline employees.

There are many jobs available in Surrey. Your friend probably works at the airport because the wages are higher than local wages. Your friend wants to pocket the benefit of airport wages while forcing someone else to pay the travel expenses. Typical free rider.

Your friend needs to make some choices. Best choice is to move to a smaller home or shared home in Richmond that costs the same as a larger home in Surrey. Second best choice is to bite the bullet and find a new job in Surrey even if it pays a little less. Third best choice is to vanpool in order to drive from Surrey to the airport almost as fast as in a single-occupant vehicle, but with much lower costs per passenger. You may even get to work sooner by using the carpool lanes despite the extra few minutes spent rounding up passengers.

Demanding a free ride on someone else's back should always be the last choice, not the first choice.

Spinning Yarns

Cycling babe

My friend is a flight-attendant that sometimes flies out at midnight and sometimes arrives at 6am. This is not a regular commuter. There is always luggage too. Van Pooling is impossible, unless you know an on-demand service that operates around the clock. Secondly, my friend is already in a townhouse and downsizing, as you suggest, would have to be to a condo-apartment to be smaller. By the way, my friend speaks four languages and has a university degree, 25 years experience and earns a salary in the mid-forties. Why would they want a new job at a lower wage, just to reduce congestion? Vancouver is the least congested place they go to! By the way they are not asking for a free ride, perhaps you are.

Keep per-km insurance separate from fuel efficiency.

the panacea of increased taxation.

I agree with offering a per-km insurance option, but I don't agree with tying insurance rates to fuel efficiency.

A Hummer H2 with 4 passengers on board is somewhat more efficient than a Honda Civic with one passenger. A Hummer H2 with 4 passengers on board is infinitely more efficient than a massive 20-ton articulated diesel bus driving across town late at night with zero passengers on board.

Instead of using a stick, it's better to use a carrot when possible. Upfront monthly hybrid car payments could be reduced by offering longer car loan amortization periods for hybrid vehicles. Hybrids pay for themselves over time with fuel savings and will likely stay on the road longer and have a higher resale value because they require half the amount of repairs compared to gas-only vehicles.

Increased fuel taxes should be revenue-neutral and should be used to eliminate the portion of annual property taxes used to maintain local roads as well as eliminating property-transfer taxes that discourage people from moving closer to their jobs.

and the batteries

The replacement Honda Insight battery costs $5,000 to replace.

June. 5, 2007

TOKYO - With gas prices reaching record high levels and increasing public interest in environmentally friendly technologies, you would think that any car labeled as a hybrid would sell easily.

But Honda Motor Co. on Tuesday announced that it will discontinue the hybrid version of its Accord sedan, citing disappointing sales.

No bank is going to stretch those monthly payments too far when these things just drop like flies. Debt would still be owing after the model is discontinued and debtors will just hand the keys to the banks because the residual value has gone.

Massive investment in trains is about the only hope. The tracks are all there.

South Surrey/White Rock to Airport Commute Options

My friend is a flight-attendant that sometimes flies out at midnight and sometimes arrives at 6am.

There is no traffic congestion at midnight and little southbound traffic at 6:00 a.m. Under a per-km insurance system, your friend deserves an off-peak traffic discount to more than compensate for any slight increase in insurance that she may face due to the longish drive.

Not offhand, but if Gordon Campbell is serious about going green, he should do what needs to be done to integrate van pools with the taxi dispatch system in order to make this feasible. The cost of doing that would be chickenfeed compared to the cost of building a rapid transit system between South Surrey and the airport. Most people already carry text-messaging-capable cellphones. All that's needed is some modifications to wireless taxi dispatch software that has been around for decades.

I seldom drive these days, but for the past few months, I have been driving an older relative from White Rock to VGH about 6 times per month for chemotherapy and other medical appointments. There have been some very early appointments. Even at 6:00 a.m. I have observed at least 4 single-passenger vehicles per minute driving northbound on highway 99.

That's her choice to make. When I lived in North Burnaby close to my job, I lived in a tiny house on a tiny lot. When I moved to Ladner to be closer to another job, for the same money I got a newer, larger house with much better insulation on a bigger lot for about the same price. If I was offered a better job in Burnaby, I wouldn't expect someone else to subsidize a larger house in Burnaby or subsidize my transportation costs. I would weigh the overall pros and cons before deciding which job to take.

And now she has basically a waitress job in the sky? Isn't that a waste of a university degree?

And she expects that the average Canadian with dependants and an income in the mid 30s should be subsidizing her transportation costs?

If she saved 2 hours per day on the road and $10,000 per year in auto expenses, that would make it more than worthwhile to take a local job paying a couple of dollars per hour less. On the other hand, if she could offload the $10k per year in transportation costs to someone else who makes 35k/yr or less, then changing jobs may not be worthwhile.

Free-riders with a sense of entitlement.

By the way they are not asking for a free ride

Then what's the problem? Why would they be against a per-km insurance OPTION unless they think they are currently geting a free ride on someone else's back and they want that free ride to continue?

No, I just want to pay my own way in a rational system. I don't mind helping someone who makes less than the average Canadian income. But even then, I'd prefer to give them tax breaks or higher welfare rates so they can decide for themselves if they want to use the money to move closer to their job/school etc. or commute over long distances. I'm not interested in subsidizing someone who makes more than the average Canadian income of $35k/yr.

Of risk and so on...

“That's a crock. I spent 4 years commuting between Port Coquitlam and North Vancouver 2-3 hours per day. Then I spent another 4 years commuting between PoCo and South Richmond. I have now arranged things so I seldom need to drive. During all these years of driving, I have never once caused a collision - not even a minor fender-bender.”

You’re making my case for me. You were driving every day for eight solid years.

“You are confusing collison rates per km with absolute collision rates per year. It's not the same thing. Some part-time drivers do have a higher collision rate per km than daily drivers, but their absolute collision rate per year is still much lower than a person who does a huge amount of driving.”

The collision rate per km is what I count as risk; no confusion there. I am also wondering how ‘huge’ an amount of driving one must do in order to bypass those christmas flies on the road in per-year risk. An insurance is normally based on how often and to the tune of what sums you, or the category of insured you represent, show up on the radar of the insurer. It should not be abused for social engineering. The path to less car use lies in better transit, actually governed by intelligence, and serving the people who are faced with choices.

“you obviously feel that your are currently getting a free ride on someone else's back and you want that free ride to continue.”

That kind of petulant, childish talk does not belong in a discussion group for adults. Please re-think your approach here.

Hybrid Battery Life and Replacement Costs

The replacement Honda Insight battery costs $5,000 to replace.

Assuming you use factory parts and the dealer does the replacement. If I got the factory to replace the batteries in my cordless electric drill, that would have cost ten times more than the couple of dollars it cost me to replace them myself with generic batteries that have better specs than the originals.

Toyota guarantees all hybrid-specific components on their vehicles (including batteries) for 10 years or 100,000 miles and Honda for 8 years or 80,000 miles. See http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/27/autos/tipsandadvice/hybrid_worries/index.htm

A 10 year warranty means Toyota expects their batteries to last a lot longer than that. A taxi company in Victoria put 330,000 km on their Toyota Prius Hybrids without any major repairs. See http://www.canada.com/theprovince/story.html?id=9cd3797a-ce1c-459e-a7ac-71ebb128fd14&k=44379 and http://lwww.alternet.org/envirohealth/23932/?comments=view&cID=21644&pID=21639

If your friend drives on highway 99 between White Rock and the Airport, she will notice that there are a a huge number of Prius Hybrid Taxis on the road. A rational person will pay lots of attention to 10 year warranties and the real life experiences of cab drivers, little attention to plucked-out-of-thin-air opinions.

Real life, multi-year experience with hybrid buses in New York have shown them to require half the maintenance of non-hybrid vehicles too.

As long as Hybrid car loans are amortized over a period that's less than the 8 or 10 year factory warranty, it will be a perfectly safe loan. Ten years from now, the original batteries can be replaced with much improved batteries such as lithium titanate batteries that are good for 10,000 - 15,000 charges. See http://www.altairnano.com/markets_energy_systems.html These batteries are currently used in a truck that you can see at http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com

In 10 years from now hybrid battery ultracapacitors may also be available as low-cost drop-in replacements for hybrid batteries. Capacitors can withstand a virtually unlimited number of charge/discharge cycles without wearing out. Supercapacitors used in some overpowered automotive sound systems charge and discharge hundreds or thousands of times per second without wearing out. The capacitors in your computer's power supply charge and discharge at least 40,000 times per second without wearing out. Bypass capacitors adjacent to your computer's CPU charge and discharge up to several billion times per second without wearing out. An ultracapacitor-equipped Toyota Supra HV-R coupe was the first hybrid to win a 24-hour endurance car race held at Japan's Tokachi International Speedway. It finished 19 laps ahead of the 2nd place non-hybrid vehicle. See Aug 28, 2007 Scientific American.

Amortizing hybrid payments over longer periods.

Honda Motor Co. on Tuesday announced that it will discontinue the hybrid version of its Accord sedan.

Honda used to make a lot of "mild" hybrids that can't run on battery power alone. It's a good thing if they discontinue these pseudo-hybrids and focus on full-hybrids instead. The new Honda Civic Hybrid can do up to 60 km/h on electric-only under certain conditions. See http://www.straight.com/article-106671/hybrid-manufacturers-target-the-mainstream

No surprise here. If you want a hybrid, get a full hybrid, not a partial hybrid.

Where are you getting the "drop like flies" theory? Since when does a 10-year warranty, a hybrid taxi with 330,000 km on it and hybrid buses in New York that need half the usual amount of repairs amount to "dropping like flies." Try providing some evidence for your opinions.

Check the actual official resale value of Toyota Prius hybrids. You'll find their resale values are significantly better than average. The Prius has been on the market for over 10 years now. There's no need to speculate or fabricate facts. Just look at real-world performance.

Even when the current generation of batteries do require replacement after the 10 year warranty has expired, it's not like the rest of the car will have no value. These types of batteries generally just slowly lose capacity instead of experiencing catastrophic failures. There will be lots of people around who will be smart enough to sell the old battery pack for $500-$1,000 or so to someone with a solar-powered off-grid house and apply that $1,000 toward buying new jobber part batteries for a couple of thousand extra instead of paying through the nose for dealer batteries. Even when the battery capacity drops to 50% of new in 20 years, the vehicle will still be driveable but with slightly less acceleration and reduced fuel economy until the battery is replaced. With a new battery, it will be better than new due to improved battery technologies - like my cordless drill.

I suggest emailing this url to ICBC

As there are many coherent comments being made here. Will they listen? Respond to you? I doubt it, but maybe numbers might pressure into changing things. We may not have power or money, but we have the number. Ants use this principle. A very good article that attempts to change things for the better, perhaps.

Hybrids, from the inside

My parents owned a taxi company for years and I still keep an interest in the business. Taxi operators will always use the car that has the lowest overall operation costs. I have some news for you: It is not a hybrid. It is the humble Toyota Corolla. Look on the streets and you will see them everywhere.

Why? Well, a Corolla is $20k and a Prius is $30k plus. You can buy a lot of gas for ten grand. Added to that, hybrids are a stupid idea. They have two sets of everything, a gas engine, a transmission and electric motors, creating a lot more CO2 just to produce the thing. With a Prius, you are tied to dealer (read big money) service and with a Corolla you are not. Then, when the thing is worn out the battery is extremely toxic.

The real solution is so simple. Tax the vehicle based on CO2 output. This is what is done in Europe. There is only one car that has no CO2 tax, the VW Lupo diesel. I was in the UK last year and rented a Vauxhaull Corsa 1.3 litre CDI turbo diesel and I wish I could have brought the thing back with me. It got astounding economy and had torque to burn. With modern emission control technology diesels run just as clean as a gas engine. The 2008 VW Bluetec is certified in all 50 states at Bin 5 Tier 2.

Hybrids are also even more stupid because the technology to make an electric car that will go 100 km at 100 km/h on a charge and have all the power toys we demand exists. The great majority of trips are under 100 km round trip. What is needed is the political will to legislate zero emission vehicles.

Hybrids are just a way of car companies getting consumers pay more for something they think they need and makes them feel good about themselves.

Re: Of risk and so on

You’re making my case for me. You were driving every day for eight solid years.

And after that I started driving only occasionally. I didn't start smashing my car up all the time when I started driving occasionally. The point is, I have been both a heavy driver and a part-time driver, so I am intimately familiar with both sides of the issue. Someone who has always been only a heavy driver or only a part-time driver will not be familiar with both sides of the issue.

Then why would you be against a per-km insurance OPTION as long as the per-km rate reflects the per-km risk for the specific driver?

Can you clarify? How do you know that all those crazy Christmas drivers you see are part-time drivers, not full-time drivers? If people who drive only at Christmas have a higher per-km collision rate, then they can pay a higher per-km insurance rate.

I haven't seen any evidence for Christmas risk, but there's lots of increased risk for people who tailgate when the roads are slippery due to ice, snow or rain. Just about everyone I know has been hit by a tailgater at some point. I would love to see tailgaters insurance costs hiked regardless of whether they have flat-rate insurance of per-km insurance.

Sure, fine. All the evidence in the world shows that people who drive less present less risk per year even if some of them present more risk per km.

Sorry, it already is. The NDP brought in a public insurance monopoly so that safer middle-aged drivers were forced to heavily subsidize dangerous teenage drivers. When a socialist system subsidizes insurance for dangerous drivers, that means more road deaths occur than otherwise would have occurred if those dangerous drivers were priced off the road by insurance that matches their risk. Private insurers in various jurisdictions do offer per-km insurance. Under our socialist monopoly system, I am not allowed to buy per-km insurance from a private insurer because politicians think that buying votes with other peoples' money is more important than saving lives and reducing pollution.

Transit alternatives and non-zero-sum insurance options

The path to less car use lies in better transit, actually governed by intelligence

The best path to less car use lies in not financially punishing people who move closer to where they work or vice-versa.

Better transit is the second best option, as long as you define wirelessly-dispatched vanpools and driverless pods as transit. 20-ton articulated diesel buses driving around at 11:00 p.m. with zero passengers on board are a huge step backward, not a step forward.

We all have choices. Some people are too blind to see them though. When I was in Toronto on business many years ago, I met a young woman who gave me her phone number and asked me to call her next time I was in town. I never did get back, but if I did and if I got involved in a relationship with her, I wouldn't expect someone else to subsidize jet flights back and forth so I could be with her every weekend. We would have had to make choices such as at least one of us moving across country to a new job or at least one of us paying big bucks for airfare so that we could see each other occasionally.

If that's how you feel, you should probably retract your following comments:

and

flies that come out at Christmas-time

I'm still waiting for you to explain clearly why you would be against OPTIONAL pay-as-you-drive insurance where the total per-km drivers' premiums match or exceed the total payouts attributed to per-km drivers. Why would you care? If you are currently paying your own way, your own rates will not go up but you will benefit from reduced traffic congestion because jurisdictions that offer per-km insurance always experience substantially reduced traffic. So you will save time and gas. Intelligently-structured insurance is not a zero-sum game. It can be win-win when it's done right.

Cycling Commuter

You make some good points. The issues I raised, about the cars, were all about the Honda Insight and the Accord Hybrid. These are facts. Perhaps the Prius is much better. Perhaps the next generation of vehicles will be better yet.

I remember a friend in California talking about his brother's (Paul McReady) invention of an electric vehicle. That was 35 years ago. It'll come, one day. Same as transit. When we have more density and the political will, or the financial or environmental need.

auto insurance reform

The HDB proposal for charging for auto insurance is unfortunately a case of rampant social engineering ("incentivizing the right behavior")without any basis in objective measurement of the activity that creates the costs insurance must cover. That activity is car use, not car ownership or driver behavior. Every mile driven transfers a statistical but real cost to the insurer and that transfer is measured directly by the car's odometer.

As just one example of erroneous assumptions made by the HDB proposal, consider this statement: "Regular pay-as-you-drive rates involve higher fees for those who spend more time on the road. But that logic can end up hurting lower-income individuals unable to reduce their driving." In fact a cents-per-mile rate is the unit price for miles purchased in advance by the insured. Once the car is accepted by the insurer and a classified rate applied, the car uses miles of insurance as it is driven, just as it uses gallons of gasoline (charged at a per-gallon unit rate), and like gasoline, more more miles are purchased as needed. Time on the road has nothing to do with it.

It is interesting that concern for the low-income driver does not seem to apply to the use of other commodities such as gallons of gasoline or pounds of sugar.

What also goes unnoticed is that under current pricing by the car year, any car driven less than average miles for its class is being overcharged, a situation that could apply to any car but on average is more likely to hurt women and older car-owners.

Nor is it a source of concern that high premiums commonly charged in low income areas are the artificial product of a system that allows no recourse for financially stressed car owners to save money except to insure fewer cars and, by sharing, pile more miles onto fewer cars, creating an upward spiral of higher per-car costs, higher premiums, and more cars forced out of the insurance pool.

To correct other erroneous assumptions, there is no need to use either black boxes or odometer checks to run a cents-per-mile system. The company knows how many miles of risk it has assumed, and car owners can read the odometer, as easily as the gas gauge, to see when to top up. Run out of insured miles and the car is uninsured. Moreover, if per-mile costs are lower in rural areas, per-mile rates are accordingly lower. Under current per-year pricing, a rural-based car driven fewer miles pays far more for each mile of insurance than an urban car driven high mileage. As for the "sin" of driving less fuel-efficient cars, bear in mind that the market for new cars relies on purchase of older used and generally less fuel-efficient cars by less affluent car owners.
(To be completed)

Auto insurance reform (end)

The bottom line is that there is no need for costly electronic reporting gear or regulatory tinkering to have an efficient, free-market auto insurance system that allows car owners to pay only for the amount of insurance protection used in on-the-road car use.

For more information, FAQ, technical papers and other publications on this subject, go to the original source of the per-mile insurance concept www.centspermilenow.org.

Hybrid Economics.

...the humble Toyota Corolla. Look on the streets and you will see them everywhere.

On Highway 99 between White Rock and Richmond, I see both Corollas and Priuses in roughly equal numbers. On Oak Street in Vancouver, I see a lot more Priuses than Corollas. Makes sense. The Prius still has some advantages on the freeway, but the advantages on Oak Street are huge. A Prius with a rooftop photovoltaic panel would have an increased freeway advantage. Photovoltaics are already cost-effective when used to directly displace gasoline consumption.

And a 1968 Cadillac in running condition with a 454 cu-in V8 can be picked-up for a couple of hundred bucks. So why aren't cabbies driving 1968 Cadillacs? It probably has something to do with the 1968 Cadillac's 5MPG fuel economy and sky-high maintenance costs.

Most cabbies spend thousands of dollars per month on gas and big bucks on maintenance too. Hybrids generally get at least 30% better fuel economy than the equivalent non-hybrid in stop-and-go driving. In the worst case you're looking at a payback period of a little over a year. Less than a year if you factor-in a 50% reduction in maintenance requirements. If the cabbie can borrow the extra $10K at a reasonable interest rate, they will come out ahead after one year. If it costs 42c/km to run a regular car and you save 12c/km with a hybrid, the extra cost will be covered before the 100,000 km warranty runs out and well before the 330,000 km that has been clocked on some hybrids.

Hybrid technical advantages.

They have two sets of everything, a gas engine, a transmission and electric motors, creating a lot more CO2 just to produce the thing.

A hybrid engine is a lot smaller than a gasoline-only engine with less iron in it and it will run much longer because it handles average power demands at low revs, not peak demands at high revs. Properly-designed brushless electric motors never really wear out. The bearings might need replacing after half a million km or so, but electric motor bearings don't cost much and they're easy to install.

Regular gasoline engines also have an electric motor (the starter motor) plus an alternator. Starter motors are fairly unreliable because they're not brushless. In a hybrid, the reliable brushless electric motor also serves as the starter motor and alternator, which means a reduced parts count, not an increased parts count.

A regular gasoline engine has a heavy lead-acid battery which is mostly used just to start the engine. Once the engine is running, the battery isn't doing anything. It just sits there. Power for the ignition, lights etc. comes from the alternator. Add up the combined weight of the starter, alternator, battery and bigger engine. That's a lot of heavy stuff being hauled around to be used for only a few seconds now and then.

Why would that matter with a 10-year warranty on the hybrid gear and a track record of 330,000 km without major maintenance?

After the warranty runs out, what is stopping a non-dealer garage from installing jobber parts on a Prius?

Car Battery Recycling and Hybrid vs Diesel.

when the thing is worn out the battery is extremely toxic.

A first generation NiMh hybrid battery is a lot LESS toxic than the lead-acid batteries used in gasoline-only cars. The N in NiMH stands for Nickel. Top-quality, non-magnetic, corrosion-resistant stainless steel cooking ware contains 18% nickel. Cheaper and less corrosion-resistant magnetic cooking ware contains less nickel. If you really think that nickel is highly toxic, you'd better get rid of all your stainless pots! Next generation Li-Ion hybrid batteries are even less toxic than NiMH.

98% of lead-acid car batteries are currently recycled into new batteries even though current scrap value of the lead in each one is less than $5. The scrap value of the nickel in NiMH hybrid batteries is already worth at least a hundred bucks and will likely be worth a lot more than that in ten years from now. If 98% of lead-acid batteries are completely recycled despite their puny $5 value, I expect the recycling rate for NiMH batteries will be close to 100%. All the same, it would be good to require large labels all over each battery pack explaining that there is a guaranteed minimum $100 refund available for each battery pack. Pop and juice container labels clearly mention the 5 cent refundable deposit. Makes sense to do the same with a $100 deposit.

Sure, that makes sense.

Sorry, I don't buy that. Modern diesels produce fewer particulate and sulphur emissions than old diesels but they still produce some microparticulates that are extremely carcinogenic as well as damaging to coronary arteries.

Pure electric vs hybrid: managing the transition.

the technology to make an electric car that will go 100 km at 100 km/h on a charge and have all the power toys we demand exists. The great majority of trips are under 100 km round trip.

Absolutely true. But people are leery of getting stuck with a flat battery. So hybrids are a good transitional technology. When every parking stall has a recharge outlet, then more hybrid owners will convert their vehicles to plug-in hybrids by adding more batteries and tweaking the controller software a little. Lots of Prius owners have already done that.

After a few years' experience with plug-in hybrids, people will be willing to try a pure electric vehicle - or at least a serial hybrid with a tiny, low-cost gasoline genset that produces adequate output to recharge enough to make it to the next charging socket or fully recharge overnight, but not enough to provide full, ongoing power for uninterrupted, long, high-speed trips.

Some may want to buy or rent a small trailer-mounted gasoline-powered recharge generator that can be instantly hooked-up to temporarily turn their pure electric vehicle into a full serial hybrid for unlimited, high-speed, non-stop, long trips where recharge opportunities are unknown. A smart entrepreneur will no doubt provide rental generator trailers at gas stations all over the place for use by electric-only vehicle owners who suddenly decide to take an unplanned long trip. The trailers could also supply extra luggage space. And they'd be useful during widespread power failures. The motor-generator sets could be taken out of hybrid vehicles that have been written-off after a substantial rear-end impact.

A smart politician will cover their rear by first converting taxi fleets to plug-in hybrids with photovoltaic panels on the roof to provide partial on-the-go recharge capability. Such panels built to fit the roof curve of a Prius are already available. This will get people used to the idea, prove the technology, and build volume to lower manufacturing costs.

A smart politician will change building codes to require recharge outlets everywhere. They will provide reduced off-peak electricity rates so that recharging will not overburden the electric grid. The extra electricity required will be provided by replacing all-electric building heating and cooling systems with geoexchange heating and cooling. A revenue-neutral increase of hydrocarbon taxes will be implemented in parallel with reduced taxes elsewhere to gently nudge people into the newer, cleaner and proven more reliable technologies.