!dev && rant

I just saw this video about car insurance and how they're essentially legal fraud. As I'm looking to get a driver's license and get myself a secondhand car, I looked what the costs actually are for mandatory car insurance that gets people so worked up...

€400 per fucking year?! And many companies that get well into the €1000?!!!! No surprise that people get so worked up about it! The budget of my entire fucking car would be only around €2000!!!!

Guess I'll be looking into building an electric bike then.. money grabbing corporate motherfuckers! And what for.. only because the average driver is a clueless operator of a killing machine?! FUCK THIS SHIT!!! 🤬

*reads rant about Europeans complaining about insurance*
*Reads rants about Europeans complaining about uni tuition*

*Painfully laughs in American*

@Stuxnet yeah I've heard that it's much worse there.. many people pay lifetime mortgages just for having educated themselves apparently. Long live the land of capitalism and welfare (for some) I guess 😅

@Condor See the problem with loans are people pay astronomical prices to go to a mediocre private uni for a degree that they struggle to find a job with.

I know people that owe $200k+, but they make $50/hr. So it's not going to be a lifetime of debt.

Someone else I know owes $125k and their salary is $35k. That's a bad idea.

For me personally, I am not paying a dime for tuition and fees. (I do have loans, but that's so I can live in an apartment near the campus.)

Also, there's other routes to take that decrease debt. Like going to community college for the first half of your education. My local community college offers free tuition if you took college classes in highschool, which is pretty common among the above average students, since the school pays for the class.

Sorry for rambling, it's just a subject I feel strongly about. People exaggerate the severity of our loan situation. Be pragmatic when it comes to loans and you won't be fucked for life.

In most of the EU you really don't need a car. I left America and didn't own a car for 5 years between Melbourne, Wellington and even when I came back to Seattle.

I have one now, but you can get away from them. It's hard in America, but young people are demanding it.

I drive my car <2 times a month and cycle to work more than I take the train.

@djsumdog Its harder to live without one in smaller towns and cities.

Public transportation in my home town is hot garbage and the one where I go to school isn't much better.

Uber gets expensive and adds up.

Without a car, most people are fucked.

@Stuxnet pragmatism and knowing your options always goes a long way.. here I'm unemployed but due to me not wasting money on pubs and parties, I still have plenty for my (rather expensive) hobby of electronics.

Well, 95% of people are idiots so I guess that this sort of complaints about University loans makes sense.. still doesn't justify the average cost though. These things should be government-funded and be accessible at no cost as a basic human right.

As for car insurance, paying for insurance instead of requiring people to just care about their car and others' by not being idiots or assholes, who the fuck thought that this would be a good idea?! If I cause an accident, it's on me to compensate it, regardless of the cost. And considering that this would be very high, I'd be wary of it and be a responsible driver at all times. Insurance on the other hand promotes reckless behavior because "the insurance company will pay for it anyway, right?"

@Condor Government funded tuition for a country with 300+ million is a God awful idea.

Again, the "average cost" of $25k/yeae for my uni is total bullshit. My tuition is $4.4k with $2.3k in fees for nice shit like a movie theater, the best student gym in the state, and so on. (I think there's a bowling alley somewhere but idk man.)

The rest of that? Estimated bullshit. My loans are the cost of rent for the next 12 months, with some extra in the event of unexpected expenses.

My textbooks? 4 of them will be like $140.

There's 3 uni's in my state that dropped their tuition to $500 a semester, so $1k/year. But they increased the fees to balance it. Overall, it's still a bit cheaper.

Car insurance is a necessity. There's too many dumbfucks driving these days. Also, anyone who thinks "oh hey the insurance will cover it" needs to be castrated so they can't reproduce. Most of the time when you file claims against your insurance, it'll get more expensive. So it's not that simple lol

@Condor not sure about belgium, but in switzerland we have a company called "mobility" which owns cars all over switzerland and you can rent them on demand (using an app). There's a per hour base tarif plus a per km tarif. Is there something similar over at your place?

@Wack I think there is yes.. Cozycar is something for Belgium that I've looked into earlier, but haven't finished the registration there. Perhaps I could look into that again, as I don't think that I would need a car more often than such a service would provide.

@Wack Per hour seems nice.

Most places in the states require per day. Then again, we have some really trashy and scummy cunts here, so the per hour would likely get abused.

I know you can get some hotels per the hour, but that's for something else 😂😂

@Stuxnet Most places here also require per day, those are the rental services that are found globally. Those by hour and via an app are fairly new, there's one or 2 more.
I can't count on either of those 2 types of services in my hometown though.. Both of them only "work" in big cities.
Imagine what insurance those cars have with all those random people and factors..

@Condor Whaaaat, so, 1250-1400 for the DL, 500 for a car you can't even drive in the centrum of Antwerp with without being fined 400 bucks, gas and insurance... 2k isn't even close to what we need to pull this shit off. :(

And... as young drivers, make that 400+200 just for being young.

Have you looked into leasing a car? That's probably cheaper than buying one and most companies take care of the insurance as well.

@xewl 2000 for car, 1500 for DL or something along those lines I think. But I wouldn't want to spend more than 4k on it.

Really cool