A study shows that allowing undocumented, (or illegal), immigrants to get driver’s licenses doesn’t have a significant impact on the percentage of uninsured drivers in New Mexico. Neither does requiring a person to have lawful residency identification in order to obtain a driver’s license.
A study was done by J. Tim Query, an associate professor of finance and business law at New Mexico State University. The purpose of the study was to find out if there was a link between the number of uninsured motorists in New Mexico and allowing undocumented immigrants to have a driver’s license. Many people are of the belief that the biggest reason why there are uninsured motorists is because those drivers are illegal immigrants.
Most, if not all, states have laws that require all drivers to purchase at least a minimum amount of car insurance. Despite this, there are plenty of drivers who don’t have auto insurance. This is either because they cannot afford to buy it, because they let their policy lapse and and haven’t gotten another one, or because they just are choosing not to comply with the laws of their state.
Car insurance works reciprocally. If you cause a car accident, then your car insurance policy pays for the damages to the other driver’s car. If the other driver causes the car accident, then his auto insurance pays for the damages to your car.
If the other guy doesn’t have car insurance, and he caused the accident, then you might be out of luck. This is why some people buy supplemental “uninsured motorist” policies to add to their own car insurance.
New Mexico, Utah, and Washington allow immigrants to apply for a driver’s license without having to provide proof of legal residence in the United States. People tend to assume that the reason why there are so many uninsured motorists in those states is because the illegal immigrants are not purchasing car insurance.
Statistically speaking, the study found that the number of uninsured drivers in New Mexico is 25.7%. Washington has 16.1% and Utah has 8.2%. The national average is 13.8%. This data comes from the Insurance Research Council’s periodic study of uninsured motorists.
Overall, after going over all the data, the study found that the lawful residency requirement has a “insignificant impact” on the percentage of uninsured motorists in a given state. The unemployment rate has a larger impact. A 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate of a given state increases the number of uninsured motorists by 1.74%.
In other words, although there may be some illegal immigrants who are driving without having car insurance, this is not the biggest problem. A much larger issue is the number of people who lost their jobs, or cannot find a job, and who therefore cannot afford to buy car insurance.
Image by Allison Cathrae on Flickr