Comment 87735

By Random Thoughts (Again) (anonymous) | Posted April 08, 2013 at 07:06:32 in reply to Comment 87730

This is probably way too much text to waste on a troll, but...
Please don't call me a liar. You should get the quotes and do some research yourself before you comment --- I have.
Our car insurance almost doubled when we moved from a smaller Ontario centre to Hamilton and chose to buy a house that we could walk to a downtown workplace from --- despite the fact that we’d be significantly cutting the amount of driving we'd done previously.
Surprised at this, I had my broker run a number of scenarios for me just see what the spreads for living in different areas would be. Sadly, at the time at least, we would've seen huge discounts on our car insurance rates if we'd chosen Burlington, Grimsby, or even the farm country beyond Ancaster, as a place to live --- and then commuted to the same workplace in the heart of Hamilton (we were/are in a position where the vehicle still has to be insured as used for employment).
I received all sorts of reasons for this --- rates are based on claims made in particular areas, etc., etc. --- but none of them had anything to do with how much the vehicle was actually going to be used (it often collected dust in driveway).
This was my point a few days ago --- that the km’s that get driven is too often poorly reflected in the costs of car ownership and yet the costs of providing infrastructure are usually in direct correlation to how much people drive. If costs that don't reflect how much a vehicle is used, like insurance rates or, for instance, license plate renewals, were based more on km travelled, I believe that infrastructure costs and their associated tax burden could be significantly reduced if the rewards for driving less were better captured in people's day to day costs.
Finally, I feel I have to note that we don’t regret for a second choosing to live where walking is an option even if we do pay more for car insurance --- it’s just a irritant that we have to. The $50.00 to $100.00 a month we might have saved on car insurance elsewhere is quickly erased by what our gas, depreciation and maintenance (not to mention time) costs would have been living somewhere far away.

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