Campaign Revs Up for ‘Pay at Pump’ Auto Insurance Plan : Reform: A similar measure was killed in the Legislature this year. The new proposal has voter-friendly enticements, but faces stiff opposition from lawyers and the insurance and oil industries.

Defeated in the Legislature, advocates of “pay at the pump” no-fault automobile insurance Monday began a ballot initiative campaign to put their plan before voters next year.

Its author, Andrew Tobias, asserted that the initiative’s 25-cents-per-gallon surcharge on gasoline, plus a $141 annual vehicle registration fee, would eliminate uninsured motorists from the highways and reduce insurance premiums of most Californians 30% to 40%.

The proposal would provide all California motorists with basic insurance coverage through premiums paid at the pump and at registration renewal. In exchange, injured motorists would give up the right to sue for “pain and suffering” damages, except those caused by a drunk driver.

The fewer miles driven and the more fuel-efficient the vehicle, the greater the financial advantage to the driver, Tobias said. He conceded that urban drivers would pay less than rural residents.

“All we are going to ask people to do next year is vote their self-interest, vote their pocketbook,” Tobias told a news conference before submitting the initiative proposal to the attorney general.

Opponents, who had been anticipating the announcement for months, pounced on the proposal.

“The voters will see it as too expensive,” said Robert Forsyth of the California Trial Lawyers Assn., the chief adversary of no-fault insurance.

Kirk West, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, said the proposed surcharge, coupled with expected state and federal gas tax increases, would “bring us close to $2-a-gallon gasoline in California.”

The chamber and other major business interests, including the insurance industry, have organized a committee called Californians to Save Our Economy to defeat the plan.

Emergence of the Tobias plan and formation of organized opposition seemed to contain the same seeds that led to a car insurance initiative war in 1988 when about $70 million was spent on several ballot proposals.

Similar to a “pay at the pump” bill killed in the Legislature this year under intense opposition from trial lawyers, the insurance industry and oil companies, the plan offers new wrinkles aimed at making it voter-friendly.

Senior citizens and low-income Californians would pay $91 instead of $141 in new registration fees.

Similarly, the plan grants operators of light- and medium-weight diesel trucks immunity from liability lawsuits, a major cost in insurance policies. In exchange, they would pay an annual fee of $350 to be used in compensating accident victims. The legislative plan excluded such trucks.

To get the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot, Tobias and his campaign group, Californians for Common Sense Auto Insurance, must collect 615,958 voter signatures.

Mike Johnson, a former adviser to Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi who co-authored the initiative, estimated that it will cost up to $700,000 to gather the signatures and $5 million to wage a successful campaign.

Johnson said truck fleet operators, average motorists and unidentified financial sources of Tobias will finance the campaign. The proposal was endorsed by Voter Revolt, the organization that sponsored the Proposition 103 car insurance reform of 1988.

“We are going to have a tremendous amount of opposition,” warned Tobias, citing the insurance companies and trial lawyers. “They have literally billions of dollars that will come out of their pockets if this thing passes.”