Now to the repair job, who does what and who pays, because at least five parties are involved.
There's the driver, who is liable, but we don't know whether he was insured. NZTA owns the road that delivered the car to us and technically shares ownership of the fence and the footpath it is embedded in. The council owns the street light, there's us with the fence, the car owner if it wasn't the driver, and multiple insurance companies.
The insurance is now an important issue considering who might take responsibility for getting the repairs done and at what cost.
The street light would be most expensive at say, $10,000 for the pole and another $10,000 for the traffic management plan to replace it. The fence is likely to cost about $5000, so long as we can get most of the work done without traffic management, and the car is probably a $10,000-$12,000 write off.
Add fines and administration charges and this is likely to be a $35,000-$40,000 costly driving mistake - and that is without any obvious injuries, which are ACC's cost.
The question about whether or not you have comprehensive insurance, third party insurance, or none at all, starts to impact following a crash. That question is occasionally knocked around politically, most particularly with compulsory third party insurance.
If the driver in this crash had no insurance then the $35,000 cost is a debt that needs to be repaid- at say, $100 per week, for a simple driving mistake. That's a seven-year repayment, equivalent to a student loan, with no degree at the end of it.
With third party insurance, the property damage is paid for and you only have to answer for the car. If comprehensively insured, you only have to cover the excess.
Car insurance is an individual issue. Around 92 per cent of the vehicles driven on New Zealand roads have comprehensive insurance. But the 8 per cent uninsured cause a disproportionate number of crashes.
A nationally representative Finder survey last year, found that almost a quarter of Kiwi drivers have been hit by an uninsured driver and that 90 per cent of Kiwis are in favour of making car insurance a legal requirement.
Last year, AA Insurance reported that they had handled more than $28 million in claims involving more than 8000 uninsured drivers considered to be at fault in crashes with its customers. A disproportionate number of the uninsured were young people. These figures do not include injury costs, which are covered by ACC in our no-fault system.
Young people are seven times more likely to be involved in a crash than the average driver. Yet these young people, who often consider that they drive less valuable cars and a crash will not happen to them, may well be setting themselves up for an extended debt repayment, with no intrinsic benefit to them.
The question remains, though, about whether we should legislate for compulsory third party insurance for every car. The thing is, insurance is a private enterprise business and insurance companies vary their premiums and the excess payable on a claim, based on the risk they perceive each driver or demographic group of drivers to have.
To compulsorily have high-risk drivers on their books would likely increase insurance premiums for everyone, most particularly if excess levels were mandated. As well, we create compliance and enforcement issues when only property is covered. ACC already covers the cost of personal injury on a no-fault basis.
Compulsory third party insurance is unlikely to make safer drivers or safer roads, with likely extra costs far outweighing the benefits. But having at least third-party insurance, could be a sensible personal choice.
