[W. K. Lis]

That's not a huge concern of mine (and not as common as it once was in Europe either). I do think some form of licensing "wet zones" for festivals, like Pride, could be done a lot better and without putting attendees into a zoo-like cage.

Or at the CNE or street festivals, such as Taste of the Danforth, or Roncesvalles Polish Festival. Being corralled within fencing to drink a beer with your cob of corn is degrading.

 

[SunriseChampion]

That's not a huge concern of mine (and not as common as it once was in Europe either). I do think some form of licensing "wet zones" for festivals, like Pride, could be done a lot better and without putting attendees into a zoo-like cage.

Yeah, it may not be anyone's priority, but do explain to me why (and I want a reasonable explanation) it should be illegal.

 

[lenaitch]

There are jurisdictions in the U.S. where its legal to get only $300,000 in liability coverage, as opposed to the typical $2,000,000 in Ontario.

In Michigan, a motorcycle rider with minimum 2 years riding is allowed to ride helmet-less if they have $20,000 'first-party medical benefits'. For a serious brain injury, $20K in the US buys you about 11 minutes of care.

So what can be done?

Lots of things.

Fraudulent claims are the most challenging, I addressed those in the post above.

Drivers without insurance. This is an important one and I would suggest 2 ways of tackling it. First, change the penalty for driving without insurance to include vehicle impoundment. One week on a 1st offence, 3 months on second and subsequent offences.

Second, in order to catch people driving without insurance, the industry should pay to equip more police cars with 'sweepers' (plate scanners) and should tie those in to a centralized insurance database so that a sweeper knows when a car is not currently listed on any insurance policy, and police can pull it over. Relatively easy to do; but requires investment and regulatory change.

Facility coverage is another problem, one in which we all pay so that really bad drivers can afford to stay on the road. I'm not convinced this is a good use of my or anyone else's money. Part of this is not being afraid to see sky-high rates for terrible drivers and making the changes outlined above so we can catch them if they drive uninsured and hit them with a sufficient penalty that this will not be a widespread problem.

Another element to this is that we simply let too many people keep their licenses when their record of convictions suggests it should be otherwise. I would like to see repeat DUI and repeat Stunt Driving offenders face either a
10-year driving ban, or a lifetime suspension.

We also need to look making driving training mandatory (it is not); and I'd prefer to see driver testing done with a simulator. The computer won't miss that rolling stop......but more importantly, it allows for testing driving skill in a range of real-life conditions that typical road tests do not. Black ice, nighttime driving, kid running out in front of your car, driver in front of you hard breaking etc. Changing the system would make it more expensive to get a license. Probably $1,500+ driver training and an extra $250 for the test. But it would result in fewer accidents and lower rates.

From there, the question about location comes in; as with sex one is penalized regardless of personal driving ability.

We can strip out location and sex from factoring criteria; though, in the absence of other changes, it means drivers in lower accident areas and women would pay more; so that those in Brampton and men could pay less.

But we could do what some insurers are already doing and install real-time driver-skill/style monitoring in cars.

Those devices (already in market) tell an insurer how often you hard break, how often you hard turn, or aggressively accelerate; provide your real number of KM as driven; and can be used to adjust for time of day and driving route, though to my knowledge these are currently not enabled on devices in use here.

When the insurer has access to all that information, its likely you see more personalized rates.

What you will also see is insurance charged by the KM.

That IS coming, soon, based on what I understand. Though it will be optional for the foreseeable future.

Great analysis in both posts. I looked into the transponder options for insurance and didn't like the parameters. A few hard brakes because some numpty cut in front of you or a couple of hard accelerations to merge on the highway and the advantages are wide out. Perhaps it's changed in the intervening years. I'm not sure if there is any regulation on the transponder packages under offer.

I've always had a problem with a cap on 'Facility' coverage. Drivers should pay the full consequences for the repeated bad choices they have made. Perhaps a 'probationary rate' for re-entering drivers who have been out of the system for a few years because they couldn't afford it.

At the risk of jamming more tech into police cars, more automated licence plate scanners is a good idea. There are simply too many loopholes for renewing plates without insurance.

I would also support a better system for ensuring notification drivers of a suspension. in the past several years the MTO has relied simply on mail service. If charged, a driver can often convince the court that they didn't get the notice and were unaware.[/QUOTE]

 

[AlbertC]

Ontario’s quantum computing edge at risk amid Ford government funding squeeze

By Kate Allen Science and Technology Reporter
Tues., Oct. 29, 2019

Ontario’s quantum computing edge at risk amid Ford government funding squeeze

Industry watchers fear the province could jeopardize its dominance in the field after letting its share of funding for Waterloo’s quantum computing institute lapse.

www.thestar.com

 

[W. K. Lis]

Ontario’s quantum computing edge at risk amid Ford government funding squeeze

By Kate Allen Science and Technology Reporter
Tues., Oct. 29, 2019

Ontario’s quantum computing edge at risk amid Ford government funding squeeze

Industry watchers fear the province could jeopardize its dominance in the field after letting its share of funding for Waterloo’s quantum computing institute lapse.

www.thestar.com

Anything that requires knowledge learned from education, Doug Ford does not understand.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Ontario’s quantum computing edge at risk amid Ford government funding squeeze

By Kate Allen Science and Technology Reporter
Tues., Oct. 29, 2019

Ontario’s quantum computing edge at risk amid Ford government funding squeeze

Industry watchers fear the province could jeopardize its dominance in the field after letting its share of funding for Waterloo’s quantum computing institute lapse.

www.thestar.com

Just mere weeks after word gets out quantum supremacy being achieved. Then again, half of taxpayers thought that was the next James Bond movie.

Horses vs. quantum computational research...guess horses win?

AoD

 

[AlbertC]

Ontario's new slogan going from "Leaders in Quantum Computing" to "Incubator of Stagnation".

 

[W. K. Lis]

In the beginning of the 20th century, the horse and buggy industry fell. Over time, there were hundreds of automobile companies to take their place. That lasted until the Great Depression, when most countries were saturated with automobiles. Many of those companies disappeared.

Doug Ford is not keeping up with the times. Some of the new companies may not survive, but they will be the future.

 

[Jasmine18]

Insurance rates are set to deal with 'local conditions". If you live in an area with many house fires you will pay more home fire insurance, if you live in an area with many auto claims you will pay higher auto insurance. That's why prices vary. Of course, you may live in a totally fire-resistant home in a high fire-risk area or drive in a higher claim-risk area but only use your car on Sundays between 7am and 10am: then you WILL pay more than is 'fair' (for you) but it's hard to see how an insurance company can totally tailor premium to person ....

True but how do you justify paying 1700 dollars for 2 cars 12 years ago to nearly 4000 dollars today. Does risk really go up by 250% in that time?

Postal code discrimination on insurance does not make sense based on risk personally. It is more an excuse to justify increasing rates on others while not punishing the actual bad drivers with what they should actually pay.

It is not even about where you drive your car, it is simply where you park it overnight (your house). It is a silly system as I could be driving 95% of the time in low-risk areas but just because I park my car in a high-risk area the insurance company assumes the risk at 100% of the time at the place where I park my car.

The issue is the cost of insurance is nearing 5-10% of net pay for some people and the highest insurance rates are now in places with high poverty and minority populations.

It is gone from a strict insurance risk and economic issue to become something that is causing a negative social impact on people.

Personally I think the higher payouts need to be capped. I know in the Indian community some people think getting into an accident is like a lottery ticket.

 

[West of Spadina]

"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top secret project, known as "Quantum Leap". Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped into the Project Accelerator--and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing mirror images that were not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brainwave transmissions with Al, the Project Observer, who appeared in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett could see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

 

[lenaitch]

True but how do you justify paying 1700 dollars for 2 cars 12 years ago to nearly 4000 dollars today. Does risk really go up by 250% in that time?

Postal code discrimination on insurance does not make sense based on risk personally. It is more an excuse to justify increasing rates on others while not punishing the actual bad drivers with what they should actually pay.

It is not even about where you drive your car, it is simply where you park it overnight (your house). It is a silly system as I could be driving 95% of the time in low-risk areas but just because I park my car in a high-risk area the insurance company assumes the risk at 100% of the time at the place where I park my car.

The issue is the cost of insurance is nearing 5-10% of net pay for some people and the highest insurance rates are now in places with high poverty and minority populations.

It is gone from a strict insurance risk and economic issue to become something that is causing a negative social impact on people.

Personally I think the higher payouts need to be capped. I know in the Indian community some people think getting into an accident is like a lottery ticket.

Capping payouts sounds like a great idea until it's you. Actually, payouts have been reduced in the past few years; you want more you pay. For example, I have no need for income replacement coverage (retired) but opted to increase injury and catastrophic injury coverage from the new lower limits. I'd much prefer better management and 'policing' of rehab providers to reduce fraud.

Vehicles are much, much more expensive to repair than they were a few years ago. Metallurgy and drivetrain configurations can drive a seemingly minor collision damage into write-off territory. A friend had to replace the windshield of his middle-of-the-road compact import - $5000.

I don't know all that much about actuarial risk, but how else would they assign risk to determine a premium? A new driver at $10,000 because they are all risk and a 30 year accident-free driver a few bucks? There's a difference between 'risk' and 'odds'. The level of personal information they would have to know to 'personalize' coverage (detailed when, where, how, etc.) would be unacceptable to most people.

 

[Jasmine18]

Capping payouts sounds like a great idea until it's you. Actually, payouts have been reduced in the past few years; you want more you pay. For example, I have no need for income replacement coverage (retired) but opted to increase injury and catastrophic injury coverage from the new lower limits. I'd much prefer better management and 'policing' of rehab providers to reduce fraud.

Vehicles are much, much more expensive to repair than they were a few years ago. Metallurgy and drivetrain configurations can drive a seemingly minor collision damage into write-off territory. A friend had to replace the windshield of his middle-of-the-road compact import - $5000.

I don't know all that much about actuarial risk, but how else would they assign risk to determine a premium? A new driver at $10,000 because they are all risk and a 30 year accident-free driver a few bucks? There's a difference between 'risk' and 'odds'. The level of personal information they would have to know to 'personalize' coverage (detailed when, where, how, etc.) would be unacceptable to most people.

However as I said the issue is that car insurance is becoming a huge negative factor for the cost of living for many...
And that some of the highest rates of car insurance exist in communities with high poverty or high immigrant populations.

My point is that frankly that some government wants to do a lot to alleviate pressures on people by giving a lot of free stuff away but I think greater regulations on car insurance could drastically improve people's Financial situations in this area.

 

[Videodrome]

Is it over for Andrew Scheer? - NOW Magazine

Party insiders say the Conservative leader is making questions about his leadership worse by refusing to accept that mistakes were made during the campaign

nowtoronto.com

Would Doug really bail on Ontario a year into his term?

 

[zang]

Is it over for Andrew Scheer? - NOW Magazine

Party insiders say the Conservative leader is making questions about his leadership worse by refusing to accept that mistakes were made during the campaign

nowtoronto.com

Would Doug really bail on Ontario a year into his term?

This is the man who rushed down from his brother's hospital bed to city hall, with literal minutes left to file his candidacy for mayor of Toronto.

So yes.

 

[DSCToronto]

This is the man who rushed down from his brother's hospital bed to city hall, with literal minutes left to file his candidacy for mayor of Toronto.

So yes.

It is the BEST IDEA EVER. He deserts the folks in Ontario. He stands for election as Tory leader. If he gets elected it reduces the CPC to a right-wing nut job party that is unlikely EVER to get elected; if he loses he has no job and I doubt the Provincial Tories would re-elect him as their leader. He might have to return to his former 'job' as (licenced this time) dope seller.