Many Say They Can’t Afford Insurance : Motorists: A survey of low-income drivers found that nearly half cannot pay more than $300 a year for coverage. The minimum policy in the L.A. area costs about $900.

With the cheapest state-required minimum auto insurance soaring beyond $900 a year in the Los Angeles area, a survey of low-income drivers by two consumer organizations Tuesday found that nearly half said they could not afford to pay more than $300 a year for coverage.

In the survey, by the Consumers Union and Latino Issues Forum, 44% of the 504 licensed drivers interviewed in a variety of South Los Angeles and East Side neighborhoods acknowledged that they were driving illegally without insurance. Most of these said they simply could not afford it.

A full 29% of the uninsured drivers said they could not afford as much as $100 a year for auto coverage. Many of these drivers had two or more cars in their families, but insisted they need them to go to work.

The results of the survey indicate that the proposal for no-frills, no-fault insurance now pending in the Legislature, with Gov. Pete Wilson’s backing, would not end the problem of uninsured motorists.

That measure, authored by state Sen. Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton), would establish a flat, statewide annual rate for a minimum required no-fault insurance of $220 a year. In exchange, drivers would give up their right to sue except for the most costly and serious accidents, and they would have to show proof of insurance each year at the time they register their cars.

Harry Snyder, West Coast director of the Consumers Union, and Edith Adame, an official of the Latino Issues Forum, said their survey indicated that the Johnston bill would do some good. Snyder, however, acknowledged that the results gave him pause, since they indicated a widespread willingness to remain uninsured in defiance of even that measure.

Of those surveyed, 29% said their annual family income was less than $15,000, 45% said it was less than $20,000 and 3% reported incomes of more than $40,000.

Of the total sample, 51% said it was unfair for the state to require that drivers carry auto insurance at all.

Of those earning less than $10,000 a year, 47% said they would only be willing to pay less than $100 a year for auto insurance, and 32% of those earning between $10,000 and $15,000 a year said the same.

Counting both the insured and uninsured drivers who were surveyed, only 24% said they could afford more than $450 a year for insurance and only 8% more than $650.

But it appeared that many of those who said they could not afford to pay beyond a certain amount were, in fact, paying more than that amount.

Of those surveyed, 50% said they were insured, as against 44% uninsured and 6% unwilling to say one way or another. But policy prices in the neighborhoods surveyed generally exceed $650 a year by a wide margin.

Among the uninsured, 49% of those surveyed said that if they were forced to pay $600 a year for auto insurance they would have less money for bare essentials, 10% said they would stop driving and 12.5% said they would drive without coverage no matter what the law.

The survey was directed by Juan Gonzalez, a sociology professor at Cal State Hayward. It was conducted in the communities of Inglewood, Rosemead, San Gabriel, Baldwin Park, Hawthorne, La Puente, Pico Rivera, East Los Angeles, El Monte, Lynwood, Paramount, Norwalk, Cerritos, Maywood, Montebello, Compton, South Gate, Lennox, Westchester, Pasadena, downtown Los Angeles and Boyle Heights.

Of those responding, 54% were Latino, 18% black, 15% Anglo and 13% Asian, surveyors said.