Insurance Industry Bashes Clark County's New Stance Toward Fender Benders
Traffic into a city slows with a powdering of snow.
Michael Clapp/OPB
The word attention is doubt a preference by a Clark County Sheriff’s Office to no longer respond to “non-injury, non-blocking vehicular crashes.”
“It’s a colossally bad idea,” pronounced Kenton Brine, boss of a NW Insurance Council, an attention organisation that represents word companies in Oregon, Idaho and Washington.
Clark County done a proclamation this week, blaming a multiple of crew shortages and an boost in calls for service.
“What we’re articulate about it is a fender-benders,” pronounced Clark County Sheriff’s Sgt. Fred Neiman. “Our use final are so high and a staffing levels are so low that this is one of a areas that were going to have to diminish during this time.”
Brine pronounced it’s a trend he’s saying in a few places around a country, and one that raises several intensity problems, from open reserve to a correctness of driving records.
“It’s a regard to a motorist if they are concerned in an collision with another motorist who is not insured,” Brine said. “It’s tough to sell word information with someone who doesn’t have any word and there’s no approach to reason that chairman accountable if they leave the scene.”
Brine pronounced there’s also a open reserve component law coercion provides: to arbitrate opposite highway rage. He pronounced carrying a third celebration during an collision helps revoke rascal and keep word rates accurate.
“This is usually a newest response to tightening budgets that we’ve seen unequivocally even before a mercantile downturn,” Brine said. “It’s only a latest idea.”
In Clark County, it appears for now to be some-more about staffing than bill cuts. The group now has 14 openings in a dialect with 126 sworn peace officers.
Sgt. Fred Neiman pronounced a employing routine for new officers in Clark County takes some-more than a year and requires both earthy and mental evaluations.
Neiman acknowledges it’s useful to have a law coercion officer during any accident, and pronounced a group might recur a position in the future.
“Of march we’re still going to repairs crashes,” Neiman said. “We’ll still respond to crashes if there appears that one of a drivers is underneath a change or marred in some way.”
Even yet fewer sheriff’s deputies will respond to fender-benders in Clark County, Washington state law requires drivers concerned in an collision with some-more than $1,000 in repairs to finish a engine car collision report.
