Please sign my petition to help and try to put an end to high insurance rates for young drivers. This is a case of discrimination against youth and would be great if you would sign the petition no matter what your age is. 

Teenagers should be having fun, focusing on school and sports, and hanging out with friends. Instead, teenagers are forced to work to try and save up for a car when they hit the age of 17. However, even juggling a part-time job on top of school, sports and friends just isn’t enough to afford a car and the skyrocketing prices of insurance for young drivers. 

Kids in our area have to face these problems daily; some kids in Kamloops have to pay double what their car costs them just for insurance, and in many cases, even more than that. ICBC and the government of Canada is targeting young drivers and forcing them to pay ridiculous amounts of money because they are perceived as reckless and untrustable drivers just because they are young and inexperienced. How is any teenager supposed to get experience with prices so high? In my case, I have had a part time job for two years, yet I still won’t be able to afford a car with the price of insurance and gas on top of that without the help of my parents, which will then put me in debt to them.

Personally, I think it is next to impossible to balance a job with school sports and other things. If your parents aren’t providing your first car and paying for insurance, you’re definitely in trouble. Liberation looks like a lot of things for those involved; it looks like paying the same as your parents maybe even less because none of us have full time jobs. It looks like payments plans so that kids don’t have to be losing so much money at once. 

The ideal of cheaper insurance is not being met in any way, shape or form. ICBC is only raising the prices of insurance as the years go by. Insurance companies don’t care that they are taking kids hard earned money if it means they get a profit; to them, they are only taking safety precautions to make sure all the young drivers on the road are the best of the best, which really only means if they have money or not. Being able to drive is a human right; and money should not be the glass ceiling preventing kids to have this right.

There are many underlying factors that contribute to this issue. One of them being ephebiphobia; which is the fear of young people. Insurance companies don't trust young people so they force them to pay more. They are categorizing them as unsafe drivers just because of one factor, their age. Companies such as ICBC are so scared of young drivers that they believe they should make them pay way more than anyone else in an attempt to keep them off the roads. Another underlying factor is that ICBC has to pay for every accident that occurs. They are taxing young people because of this and think that they should make them pay for the accidents instead of it coming out of their pockets. Ephebiphobia is a huge thing that contributes to this in so many different ways; societies ideals of young people is making it harder for them to do simple things like get their license and drive.