Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff, Lauren vocal bam here. Have you ever test driven a new car with the salesperson sitting next to in the passenger seat urging you to open it up a little more find out what this thing can really do? That kind of encouragement might help sell cars, but it's a
calculated risk on the part of the salesperson. Sure, if you're testing a car from a dealership and an accident occurs, there's a chance that your personal car insurance may be considered responsible, but that's not as common as you might think. Each state has different laws that determine responsibility. We spoke with Jeff Willoughby, director of Large Accounts at Centry Insurance,
a US mutual insurance company. He said the customers insurance can come into play depending on state statutes and whether or not their coverage is considered primary or the dealership's coverage is considered primary, and that's different across the country. Furthermore, Willoughby explains crashes during test drives don't happen all that often, though no one really keeps track of the exact numbers.
As a proportion of test drives taken but when they do, he said, it's normally covered by whatever company handles the inventory for that dealership. Car dealerships are considered niche markets by the insurance company and require specialized insurance, which can
come from a few different places. A property and casualty insurance company is able to handle the needs of a business such as a car dealership, but Willoughby points out that car dealerships can also buy insurance through the manufacture of the card that they sell, or through the lender they use to finance their inventory. Thanks to these specialized types of insurance, a car dealership doesn't have to individually
ensure every car on the lot. Rather, the cars fall under a blanket policy, which makes things easier since a dealership's inventory changes daily. So how much does a dealership pay for coverage on all of its cars. It varies a lot, depending on the size of the dealership and whether it's a small business or part of a larger dealer network. Willoughby estimates a single point dealership in an average sized town might spend between forty thousand and sixty
thous and dollars a year for coverage. A multilocation dealership will spend anywhere from a hundred thousand up to millions of dollars. This coverage protects all of a dealer's inventory and isn't just for test drives, so chances are if you wreck a car on a test drive, the car
dealership and its insurance company probably has it covered. But since it's still a risk to just let anyone come in off the street and drive a new car, car dealerships have several best practices to help minimize the potential for problems. You might be annoyed by a salesperson's nosey chit chat, but the salesperson is actually assessing the risk you pose, as well as how likely you are to
buy a car that day. A dealership's insurance company generally expects the dealership to follow specific procedures during the test drive as well. Willoughby said, the salesperson goes with them on the test drive to control the exposure, and also best practice is there's a predetermined route that the test drive takes, because you want to have a test drive route that consists primarily, if not solely, of right hand turns to avoid the extra exposure that exists when you're
making left hand turns. Some dealerships allow customers to take cars home overnight, and, as you might guess, their insurers are not exactly fond of this practice. Willoughby notes that if a car is damaged while it's in a customer's care overnight, the scenario becomes a lot more complicated. A car dealership also has the right to refuse test drives.
Some common scenarios where the dealership might decline to let a customer test a car include the person not having a driver's license, the person appearing to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the car they want to drive being rare or unusual, or the car they want to drive being very high performance. So if you have your eye on that limited edition Speedster, just be aware that the sales team is going to be wary of anyone who just wants to go for a joy ride.
Willoughby said, that's at the dealership's discretion. Every dealer kind of makes their own call on that. Most dealers aren't going to let those specialty cars out of their sight. Meanwhile, what would happen if you were out on a test drive and you've got a speeding ticket. Most of us would have the usual choices pay the ticket or fight a in court, unless you're the CEO of sports car
manufacturer Lotus. In January, fifty four year old Jean Mark Gals, who already had a storied history of moving violations, successfully argued his way out of a one hundred and two mile per hour speeding ticket in a seventy mile per hour zone near Norwich, England. Gayle's reportedly told the court that he was testing one of the company's newest cars and was given a pass. Today's episode was written by
Shery's three Witt and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on this and lots of other high performance topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.