Your First Car....

[Edward]

In my experience the insurance companies here in the U.S. will do just about anything they can to get out of paying a claim; it wouldn't surprise me to find that somewhere in their morass of clauses it was stated the vehicle wasn't covered during non-business hours and/or was being used for non-business reasons. Of course, his supervisors at the company could easily lie and say he was on the clock and making a special run, so...

I suspect that's very much the case. I sometimes wonder am I more aware of these things as a result of having studied law, but yeah, insurance will try anything to minimise payments. When our house was burgled while we were on holidays in 1991, the insurance company who had charged my parents more to insure a number of items as antiques then claimed the fact that they were "old, so wear and tear" as an excuse to pay out less.

Also, if he had chosen "not to own a car" I have to wonder if his driver's license was still valid.

I assume that varies depending on local rules? I have heard of places in the US where you have to take the test again every few years. Over here, once you have your licence that's it. Once you hit seventy, you have to reapply for your licence every three years (instead of every ten), but there's no test, you just have to reapply and self-certify you're not disqualified for any one of a number of set health reasons, and confirm that you meet the eye-sight requirements. The upshot of this is that I haven't driven for twenty-two years as of last week, but I still have a valid driving licence (very handy for ID purposes) so in theory could hire a car and drive through London tomorrow. In practice, were I to buy my own vehicle, I would pay handsomely for insurance (though not as much as I would have at seventeen) as I've not spent a couple of decades building up a no claims bonus.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I assume that varies depending on local rules? I have heard of places in the US where you have to take the test again every few years. Over here, once you have your licence that's it. Once you hit seventy, you have to reapply for your licence every three years (instead of every ten), but there's no test, you just have to reapply and self-certify you're not disqualified for any one of a number of set health reasons, and confirm that you meet the eye-sight requirements. The upshot of this is that I haven't driven for twenty-two years as of last week, but I still have a valid driving licence (very handy for ID purposes) so in theory could hire a car and drive through London tomorrow. In practice, were I to buy my own vehicle, I would pay handsomely for insurance (though not as much as I would have at seventeen) as I've not spent a couple of decades building up a no claims bonus.

As far as I know each state here in the U.S. has it's own sets of rules specific to that state, and others that apply all over the country regardless of which state a person finds themselves driving in. As such, cross-country truck and bus drivers have to familiarize themselves with any number of rules/laws tailored specifically to whichever state/county/parish/city they're driving in at any given moment.

That being said, I've only lived in California here on the west coast of the U.S., so I can't speak from experience on how they do things in other states. I also haven't received a traffic citation in the last 20 years, so whenever it's time for the expiration date on my driver's license to be renewed (every four years, I think) they've just sent me a new one. Apparently, their logic is that you probably know how to drive correctly if you haven't had any tickets or accidents so there's no reason to demand you waste half a day at your local Department of Motor Vehicles taking tests. Fine by me; the less bureaucracy in my life, the better. I'm sure age enters into it at some point, but I don't know what age that might be.

This is for your standard "Class C" license, i.e. the one issued to everyone and anyone who passes all of the required tests. There are also the "Class M1" licenses for motorcycles; "Class M2" for motorized bicycles and/or mopeds; commercial and non-commercial "Class B" for single vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) of 26,000 pounds or more, any bus, any farm labor vehicle, any single vehicle with three or more axles, any motor home over 40 feet in length; commercial and non-commercial "Class A" for any combination of vehicles (a tractor-trailer "semi" truck is legally considered as two vehicles here in the U.S.) if any vehicle being towed is has a GVW of more than 10,000 pounds, any vehicle towing more than one vehicle, and/or any trailer bus.

 

[tonyb]

My former state of residence and my current one have an interstate compact — they honor each other’s driver’s licenses. I just handed them my old (unexpired) one, they punched holes in it and handed it back to me, made me read the lowest line I could on the let’s-make-sure-you’re-not-blind gizmo, took my picture and my money and that was that.

Four years later I renewed online. I had to swear that I’d had my vision checked at some point in the not-too-distant past. They sent me a new license.

It’s too lax, really. It makes it too easy to cheat.