A new report starkly warns that ICBC’s basic insurance rates will have to climb by 30 per cent over the next two years for the Crown corporation to remain in the black.
The report also provides some helpful recommendations that would cut costs and reduce crashes. But you’re not going to like them: the return of photo radar and the introduction of no-fault insurance.
Almost a quarter of ICBC’s costs are spent on lawyers arguing in court over who should pay and how much whenever there’s a crash.
And while studies have found photo radar does reduce speeding and crashes, the general public regards it as a sneaky, unsporting cash-grab.
The minority NDP government has ruled out both, given that the next election is always just one confidence vote away.
But bemoaning one policy or another is just obfuscating the real issue here.
The cost of insuring us as drivers is going up because we as drivers are making it so. There has been a 23 per cent increase in crashes since 2013, which is totally unacceptable.
Speeding, failing to signal, passing too closely, running reds, rolling through stops, glancing at smartphones – these are the things that result in crashes, almost all of which are preventable.
We on the North Shore know all too well about the almost daily collisions along Highway 1 that bring the driving public to a near halt for much of the afternoon.
Until we collectively decide to ditch these bad habits or insist on better decisions from our leaders, we deserve whatever raise in rates we’ve got coming to us.
As long as we have ICBC, we’re all in this together.
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