I've been accepted to Startup School and I'm pretty excited about it. I haven't yet worked out the details of my trip, but I plan to stay for a few days. I've only been to the San Francisco area once and I didn't really get to do much exploring, so I'm hoping to remedy that this time around. I'll probably need a rental car, which I know from past experience will be both difficult and expensive.
I'm 24 years old. I've been driving cars for 10 years - the first two under adult supervision. My licence actually has "safe driver" printed on it even though some of the people I took for rides in my Datsun 280Z when I was a teenager might disagree. Most car rental agencies won't rent to me because I'm too big a risk. Those that will charge more than double simply due to my age.
I'm perfectly willing to accept that statistically, I represent a greater risk than someone 10 or 20 years older. I don't know the exact percentages, but I'm guessing a 24 year old male driver is up to a third more likely to crash a car than a 44 year old male driver. I don't object to paying a third more for the insurance on the rental car, but the fact that I have to pay several times as much[0] is highly offensive to me. To make matters worse, many rental agencies provide senior citizen's discounts and I'm aware of none with a maximum age restriction. Again, I'm not going to look up the numbers, but I'm pretty sure an 84 year old is a bigger risk than a 24 year old, but the 84 year old can get a nicer car for $20 a day than I can for $50.
It's baffling to me that our society puts up with blatant discrimination against the young, but pitches a fit about anything that might discriminate against the old. I'm interested to hear what people think the causes are, and what can be done about it.
[0] I don't really know what percentage of the cost of renting a car pays for insurance, but I'm guessing it's never more than half.
last updated 2 years ago #
