It is an uncomfortable truth that America’s enthusiasm for technological innovation often leads legislatures to harm low-income families through burdensome regulations.
Case in point is automotive insurance regulation, which forces low-income families to fund technological innovation that prices them out of the market. Skyrocketing insurance prices exacerbate economic exclusion and social dependence for teenage drivers. Car insurance regulation is driving automotive inequality and limiting Americans’ liberty.
Today’s vehicles come loaded with radar systems, backup cameras, and lane-keeping assist. These features improve safety, but they also make repairs astronomically expensive. A $500 fender-bender in 2005 might cost $3,000 or more today. In many cases, insurers now total the car rather than fix it. Premiums climb alongside costs, especially for risk-prone categories such as new drivers. I am a father of five daughters and have learned the hard way that the high-risk pool now includes young women, for teenage girls are more likely to text and drive.
Families are left with grim choices: double their insurance premiums to add a teenage driver, let them drive uninsured and illegally, or forgo teaching them to drive at all. We are at risk of creating a generation that never learns driving skills, precisely when self-driving car companies would benefit most from a dependent customer base. The “driverless future” works for venture capitalists, but it’s a trap for poor families who depend on driving for economic mobility.
Admittedly, there are many causes for rising rates, including more uninsured drivers, rising labor and parts costs, and inflation. But the hidden force behind it all is insurance regulations. Most states require liability coverage that reflects the possible cost of damaging any vehicle on the road. The family whose teenager drives a 2008 Corolla pays rates based on the possibility of damaging someone else’s $90,000 high-tech, luxury SUV. Lower-income drivers either subsidize high-end car ownership or lose the mobility necessary for full participation in economic and familial life.
The fix is simple. States should allow families to opt for lower insurance tiers with lower payout caps. If a working-class parent wants to insure for a $10,000 or $15,000 liability cap, they should have that option. Wealthier drivers can still fully insure their own high-tech cars. Those who want the benefits of expensive technology should pay to insure them, not force that cost onto others. We shouldn’t hide the real cost of vehicle innovation by spreading it across a captive pool of payers, including those least able to pay.
Innovation should not come at the price of economic dependency. Young people deserve the chance to learn how to drive and decide later whether to embrace a self-driving future. They should not be forced into it because their families could not afford insurance. Driving is still a rite of passage, a path to work, and a key to economic independence. Taking that away from the economically marginalized is both short-sighted and unjust.
Autonomous vehicles, centralized ride-hailing platforms, and government-subsidized transit programs are being heralded as the future. But if current trends continue, we will soon have a two-tier system where the rich own and operate their own vehicles and the poor are nudged into transport systems they do not control.
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We should not ask low-income families to pay for the transition to a future of self-driving vehicles. We should instead ensure that all young people have the skills and freedom to choose for themselves. Mobility is opportunity. America’s low-income youth need that opportunity most of all.
Auto insurance reform may seem technical, even dull. You certainly never hear it discussed on the campaign trail. But for millions of families, it is the difference between economic participation and exclusion. The new pope, Leo XIV, has rightly reminded us that technology must serve the human person, not the other way around. That includes the teenager nervously gripping the wheel in a church parking lot, learning to drive the only car her family can afford. As the Midwestern pope might put it, we were born to run.
Caleb Henry is a professor of political science and a faculty associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville