Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Uninsured Motorist in Tennessee
Tennessee law states that an individual living in the state is required to be financially responsible for the damage or injury they could cause in an auto accident. This is called a tort state. In order to drive a car in this state residents are required to show proof of your financial responsibility. The limited amount that a driver can have is call liability. So with all of that being said, if everyone follows the law, why do we have such a topic at hand? Allow me to answer that question, “because everyone does not follow the law.” Uninsured Motorist is a topic rapidly grown in the state of Tennessee. Having dealed with this topic on a personal note, only catalyze my interest. I was involved in an accident in the other party did not have motor insurance. And before you guest, yes I footed the bill. Although I was not a fault, everything was filed to my insurance company. The understanding that I gained stated that my insurance company would personally sue the individual at fault. From a broader perspective all vehicles need proper insurance at all times. As a state, Tennessee should work harder to crack down on individuals who are not following the laws involved in auto insurance. Over next few blogs posted on this topic, I hope to bring new ideas, awareness of the need of insurance, and understanding of the legal side of uninsured motorist.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You are right about this. I believe that everyone should have some type of insurance. The bottom line is that you should have car insurance. Because you could get hurt or hurt someone very badly. Tenness laws does require you to have at least liability insurance. The ideais that uninsured motorist insurance is to protect the person who do not have insurance from drivers who do not have liability insurance. That has happen to me.
ReplyDeleteUninsured motorists are a growing problem nationwide. Often, It simply comes down to economics. During times of recession, individuals often find themselves choosing between what they need and what they want. Although liability insurance is required in the state of Tennessee, people still view it as something they can do without. While the law views insurance as a necessity, practical matters often dictate that it be viewed as somewhat of a luxury for numerous households. When people have starving children at home, they are clearly willing to risk getting stopped by the police and questioned about insurance on the way to the grocery store to get food to feed their children. If they are not engaging in other illegal or suspicious activity, they realize that their risk of getting stopped is relatively low.
ReplyDeleteThis particular law appears to be discretionary among police officers, and that type of situation leads to allegations of abuse of power. Laws should be enforced, and they should be enforced in a consistent manner, not just when the driver fails "the attitude test." Under the right circumstances, officers will turn a blind eye to the insurance requirement and allow motorists to proceed on their way. Sometimes, this occurs to the detriment of other drivers.
Even though the economy is such that the requirement to have liability insurance is often ignored, the requirement seems to be a logical one. However, there should be more effective ways of administering the fallout from the law than by deferring to the insured motorist's coverage to pay for damages suffered during an accident and subsequently increasing that individual's insurance rates. I don't know what the answer is to this problem, but there must be a better way.
I most definitely agree with you Tonja this is a big issue across Tennessee. Most Tennessee drivers are not insured motorists. To this, it causes problems to the people who are insured. Like the accident mentioned previously, it falls on the driver who's not at-fault and raises their insurance sky high. I think that Tennessee and all the other states really should crack down by doing more traffic stops to greatly pursue this issue. This is a very good and interesting blog post Tonja.
ReplyDelete