Texas’ biggest road menace? Uninsured motorists


As a Texas driver, what should be your biggest concerns on the road? Drunk drivers? Right up there. Speeding drivers? Certainly. But don’t forget drivers of 4.1 million more vehicles. That’s how many are uninsured, says the Texas Department of Insurance.

This is not to say all 4.1 million uninsured vehicles are driven recklessly and may hit you. But if one does, you’re in big trouble — even if you weren’t to blame. That’s because it can be hard to collect car accident damages when the at-fault driver has no insurance. Your own insurance company won’t want to pay, and the other driver probably won’t be able to pay. Checkmate.

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Houston fails to get uninsured drivers off roads, and you pay the price


Why is it so hard to collect  a car accident insurance claim, even when you weren’t at fault? Because insurance companies are stingy–and are getting even stingier due to uninsured motorists on the road. When an uninsured driver is at fault in a car accident, then the claim goes to the innocent driver’s insurer, who doesn’t want to pay. And that’s a huge problem.

Some Texas cities are doing something about it — but Houston isn’t one of them. According to a report on KHOU Channel 11 News, more than 15,000 drivers annually for the past two years were ticketed in Houston for driving without car insurance — a legal offense. And some uninsured drivers were ticketed repeatedly. In fact, more than 100 people got ticketed five times for the same offense.

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