New law should help Maryland motorists get insurance

On July 1, 2024, new laws aimed at encouraging uninsured drivers to obtain auto insurance coverage will take effect in Maryland and Virginia.

Maryland will increase the fines for driving without insurance beginning on July 1. These penalties are assessed when the Motor Vehicle Administration is notified that coverage has lapsed on a vehicle with active plates. The vehicle owner is assessed an initial penalty for the first 30 days and then an additional penalty each day thereafter until new coverage has been obtained or the plates have been returned to the MVA.

As of July 1, the penalty for the initial 30-day period will increase from $150 to $200. Each subsequent day, an additional $7 is assessed. As part of this legislation the annual maximum penalty increases from $2,500 to $3,500. These uninsured motorist penalties are assessed for each uninsured vehicle on the policy.

This is the first time in over three decades that Maryland’s uninsured driver penalty fines have been adjusted. With this change, the average annual premium for a Maryland auto policy is lower than the maximum annual uninsured driver penalty. At the current rate, it is often cheaper for some drivers to pay the fine than to get insurance. This law changes that and it is an important step in enforcing Maryland’s auto insurance requirement and encouraging drivers to practice safe driving habits which include obtaining the insurance that is required.

Virginia’s new law makes auto insurance coverage mandatory. Previously, Virginia drivers had an option to pay an uninsured motorist vehicle fee and drive without auto coverage. And because Virginia allows non-residents to register out-of-state vehicles in Virginia, thousands of Maryland residents have registered vehicles there. The new insurance requirement may encourage some of these Maryland residents to register their vehicles in Maryland and obtain the required auto coverage.

At Maryland Auto Insurance, our mission is to provide all Maryland residents with access to the required auto insurance coverages they need. We appreciate the efforts of the Maryland and Virginia legislatures to increase enforcement and encourage drivers in both states to have coverage. These new laws will protect all drivers on the roads in our region from the risks and costs associated with accidents involving uninsured vehicles.

— Al Redmer Jr., Baltimore

The writer is executive director of Maryland Auto Insurance (formerly the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund), which covers Maryland drivers who could not obtain legally required auto insurance coverage from the voluntary market.

O’s honor pioneering ‘Baltimore guy’

The T. Rowe Price patch on the Orioles team jersey can be viewed as commercial sponsorship or as nothing different than the historical names Hopkins and Pratt and Meyerhoff and Lewis on local institutions (“Orioles to add T. Rowe Price patch to jersey sleeve as part of ‘multiyear’ deal,” June 10).

Price was a Baltimore guy who grew up in rural Glyndon and prior to World War II pioneered group investment with annual fees and growth-based investment. He was, in his low-key way, a giant.

Baltimore should honor its entrepreneurs, inventors and wealth creators because doing so inspires more to come.

I recently attended a rocking concert of doo-wop music by some descendants of Sonny Til and The Orioles, a 1947 group of Black musicians from Baltimore who are honored in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the first vocal group in “rhythm and blues” music. Yep, that started here too. We need to find a place to celebrate them, too.

Honoring Baltimore’s smarts and talent makes us proud and helps inspire more to happen.

— Stan Heuisler, Baltimore

Trump seeks a dictatorial ‘Fourth Reich’ in America

Adolf Hitler attempted to establish a Third Reich or third empire in Germany (after the Holy Roman Empire and the German empire that ended in 1918). What number reich in America is Donald Trump trying to establish? I figure it’s a “Fourth Reich” (“‘All hands on deck’: Trump vows to help GOP in House races,” June 14).

Our first reich began in the formative years from the first settlers to the Revolutionary War. The second was the “Southern Caste System and Slavery” to the Civil War. The third has been the “Civil Rights and Constitution Scrutiny” era that ran into a possible hard end with Trump’s election as president in 2016.

We have a choice now: Do we help Trump and his cronies establish that Fourth Reich that amounts to “Rule by Dictator and the Ultra Religious” or do we stop this horror and fight tooth and nail to usher in an era of “Democracy, Civil Rights and Sanity”?

— N.L. Bruggman, Jarrettsville