The old samurai warriors always said, “Fear not the weapon but the hand that wields it.” In modern times we can translate this to the field of transportation as, “Fear not the car but the man behind the steering wheel.” This comparison is valid because most car accidents happen because of bad drivers whose risky behavior and inattentiveness on the road cause motor accidents. The human error factor is normally the most serious one to come into play in road accidents, especially on super highways where vehicles travel too at “super” speeds. With the fast movement of cars, just a little mistake can result in huge vehicle pile-ups – all because one or two of the motorists were bad or risky drivers.

So when it comes to the subject of car insurance, insurance companies tend to look closely at the driving records of car insurance applicants. Seldom are cars -especially newer ones – with factory defects responsible for crashes, after all, these machines have undergone rigid safety checks before they are released on the road. Thus, accidents on the freeways are more likely to be caused by bad habits and attitudes of drivers more than anything else. Car owners might strive to own new cars not only for prestige purposes, but also because they are aware that it pays to have a new car because the maintenance costs are much less than that required for older cars.

Car insurance premiums differ in rates, and car insurance firms are aware that they have to look closely into why a driver applying for car insurance might have a string of violations to his name. They thus charge higher premium rates to risky drivers because they do not want to lose money in covering bad drivers with premiums not high enough, as such anticipating their meeting motor accidents later.
Bad drivers pay, so to speak, and some insurance agencies stick to this standard. They want the bad drivers to pay for their wrongdoing, as their business will suffer if they are not aware of this.
Insurance companies therefore make sure to increase the offender’s premium by as much as 40% of the insurer’s base rate after his/her at-fault accident. Drivers involved in accidents often try to point to the other driver(s) involved in the accident as being at fault, but when the traffic investigator comes on the scene the driver with the bad record is already at a disadvantage in the debate.

Car insurance quotes are easy to get from the car insurance companies, but a driver with a bad driving record might have some difficulty passing their qualification requirements. Obviously, bad driving is not tolerated even at the process of initially getting car insurance coverage because insurance companies do not want to add to the misery of people getting involved in messy freeway motor accidents. By making the people with bad driving records pay higher car insurance rates, they hope that the applicant will feel the pain early – long before the motor accident happens.