Root of hike is likely distracted driving
I read with dismay James Salzer’s front page article “Insurance chief flags Allstate hike” on April 12 about the “consumer alert” Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens had issued with respect to the impending 25 percent auto insurance rate hike by Allstate.
According to the article, Allstate’s justification for said increase was a surge in auto claims, that adversely affected fourth-quarter profits for the company.
My sense of dismay stems from the total lack of focus in the article on the likely root cause of the surge in claims: the increasingly obvious distraction of drivers by their cell phones. Where is the consumer alert drawing your attention to the cell phone-wielding driver next to you on the road?
Until Georgia legislators revisit the legislation which minimally addressed texting while driving, and ban all cell phone use while driving, we can continue to expect ever-increasing auto insurance rates.
CECILIA PEIRCE, JOHNS CREEK
N.C. law doesn’t protect society
It is apparently lost to the letter writer of (“Separate gender restrooms protect the public,” April 14) that there are existing ways of dealing with sexual predators who would troll public restrooms that do not involve ostracizing an entire group of citizens who are undeserving of being singled out. Given that transgendered individuals are no more likely to be sexual predators than the rest of the population and that most perpetrators of sexual assault do not struggle with issues of gender identity, there is no basis for assuming that laws like the one recently signed by the North Carolina governor can provide protection “for a larger portion of society.” On the contrary, such laws only serve to needlessly stigmatize our fellow citizens.
SANJAY LAL, MORROW
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