Saturday, November 14, 2009

Car insurance

The new year is coming up soon and one of the things I want to focus on is riding my bike more.  It used to be pretty dangerous to ride on our surface streets in Reno but not now!  A lot of our busy streets go repaved this summer.  Not only did the potholes get fixed, lanes were reduced down or the street was widened and now most of the busy (dangerous) streets have bike lanes. 

Now that I can ride in a bike lane the entire way to work, I want to ride more.  I don't think we are ready to go with out both cars (it is my security blanket...or crutch) but I don't like the idea of paying for the insurance while it is just sitting at home in the driveway.

what to do? What to do?  How about car insurance that was tied to the number of miles you drive?

The Sacramento Bee had a story last week talking about pay by the mile care insurance.  Right now, it is not offered here in Reno but from the Sacbee story, it seems like it might be a reallity in California. 

There is a company in Texas called MileMeter Auto Insurance which is the first company to offer this type of insurance (their claim).  With there new milemeter 2.0 program, you are covered in 6  months periods but you are only billed for the miles you actually drive.

How nice would it be to only pay for the miles that you drive?  If we had this insurance then I wouldn't be  paying for car insurance while the car is sitting during the week.  This would work for us because if I ride everyday to work then we would only use the car for running around during the weekend.  But I could still take the car if the weather was bad (or I was being lazy)

What do you think?  Do you think this would work for you and your family?  Do you drive less then 12,000 miles a year?

I also know of people that are carless and then just rent a car if they are going out of town.

I think that pay as you go insurance and higher gas prices would help a lot of people on the fence make the decision to start riding more.

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