Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal on auto insurance prices has created a battle royale in Albany between two powerful interest groups that have lots of sway in the Legislature and usually get their way: the trial lawyers and the insurance companies.

We think that they should find common ground and join together on something that everyone should agree on: Get the worst drivers off the road, permanently. All New Yorkers are paying for these rolling hazards with money and blood.

Exhibit A was on the front page of the Daily News yesterday, Miriam Yarimi the Brooklyn wigmaker now in prison for last year running over and killing a mother and her two daughters, ages 8 and 5, and critically injuring the family’s 4-year-old boy.

Yarimi was doing 68 mph when the New York City speed limit was 25. She also blew through several red lights and was on her phone. But this wasn’t just an unforeseen accident. Yarimi had a horrible driving record with lots of violations and suspensions (and her license was suspended at the time of the crash). Her car had been recorded as receiving 21 speed-camera tickets and five red-light tickets.

Yarimi should have permanently lost her license long before she killed last March. She would have been much better off, as would the family she ran down. But New York makes it very difficult for even huge dangers like Yarimi to be stripped of her license to operate 3,000 pounds of steel, glass and plastic at high speeds on public roadways. That has to change.

For more than 100 years, since the rise of the Model-T and the decline of the horse, the assumption has been that each adult needed a car to live, to work, to get food, medical care, education, anything. That assumption is no more. Now, it’s not just those folks who live in areas with comprehensive mass transit and widespread traditional taxis who can be fine without a car.

What changed? Universal access to rideshare services, like Lyft and Uber, allowing mobility for everyone, everywhere. Losing a driver’s license doesn’t mean losing your job and your ability to get around, safely.

This is also the insurance issue. The worst drivers, like Yarimi, who pose the greatest risk to property and persons, have the least coverage, while excellent drivers with no infractions can have extensive coverage. Isn’t that a bit backwards, shouldn’t the worst driver have the most insurance, not the least? But even better is to get the worst drivers off the roads, permanently.

Some drivers have such poor driving records that no insurer will write a policy. But the state wants everyone to be able to drive (again, the old thinking that everyone must be able to have a car) so the state has created the assigned risk pool, where the state assigns — which is nice way of saying forces — insurers to cover these horrible risks.

But such assigned risk pool coverage is only the legal minimum ($25,000 or $50,000, which is perhaps enough to pay for a few days in the hospital) and the barebones insurance is quite expensive for those terrible drivers.

Getting these horrendous drivers off the roads is better for everyone. Start with anyone who is in the assigned risk pool for numerous moving violations like DUI/DWI and extensive speeding.

As the risk for everyone goes down, money will be saved and lives will be saved.

_____

©2026 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.