No-Fault Auto Insurance

Your points about the obviously essential no-fault insurance were well made but incomplete.

Proposition 103 carried because, as someone said, if you promise to rob Peter to pay Paul you bet you can count on the support of Paul. We have closely watched the development of Proposition 103, had both side speak to us, and see no benefit in it. The numbers just do not exist as the Voter Revolt people say they do. When questioned about their assertions the 103 side always immediately changed the subject, especially away from tort reform. In our estimation Proposition 103 was a preemptive strike to delay law (tort) reform, the regulation of lawyers, and postpone the loss of their incomes. They should own up to that now instead of trying to excuse themselves after 70% of drivers get bigger insurance bills (more if you are military dependents).

No-fault is part of the answer but unless there is some independent regulation (and that does not mean the State Bar which is no more than a price-fixing ring) over lawyers, their incompetence, and their extortionist rates, this upward spiral of insurance rates, in which they play such a large part, is just beginning. Also, why under Proposition 103 should traffic tickets that do not generate insurance claims be a factor on which insurance companies must base their rates?

Two years on, the feeling is that somebody who knows something about insurance is urgently needed somewhere in this process. Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) and Speaker Brown have shown us that they don’t qualify. Every lawyer who speaks, from Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp to Insurance Commissioner Roxani Gillespie, sings the same silly songs while making an ever-more feathery bed for their fellow lawyers at our expense. Any lawyer who stands for insurance commissioner will not get much support.

MRS. F.K. SMITH

Long Beach