Charlie Crist: Decider Man on PIP

Excuse me, but Charlie Crist forcing the Florida legislature to act on PIP insurance is not a profile in courage. Crist should have done this before PIP elapsed.

Florida - The Florida No-Fault Law is no more. As of Midnight, October 1st the law expired and there's no guarantee that doing away with it will save drivers any money. That was part of the argument for getting rid of the law. But WINK News found out, without the no-fault law drivers may have to pay extra for medical expenses, liability coverage, lost wages and may even get sued for causing an accident.

"At midnight you're telling me I'm no longer covered, that's crazy," said Driver Jamie Davis.

Crazy, indeed.

The lack of PIP insurance will increase lawsuits for people looking to cover injury and auto damage costs. Crist never cared about PIP. For him to act like he does is dishonest. He was asked about extending PIP by the St. Petersburg Times editorial staff. His answer left many people shocked.

"But I didn't run for governor thinking about PIP. I really didn't. I ran for governor to protect Florida, to try to help consumers, to help education. This was not foremost in my mind.

This wasn't a priority for the legislature. The St. Petersburg Times reports Crist had to persuade "reluctant legislators to devote time in this week's special session to resurrecting the state's no-fault auto insurance laws." Crist and the legislature are so beholden to the insurance industry. They finally came to the realization that, doing the insurance industry's bidding, by letting PIP expire would be extremely unpopular. The industry will just have to settle for writing the legislation themselves.

Johnnie Byrd was right. The Florida legislature is nothing more than a bunch of sheep. Howard Troxler says as much in his latest column. I'm not about to disagree.