Keeping Up To Date With San Jose Driving Laws Will Keep You Driving

Keep your insurance current, stay up to date on driving laws, and you won’t have a problem driving in San Jose.

San Jose Driving

Unless you live in California, most people have no idea where San Jose is. Many people figure it to be in the southernmost part of the state due to its Spanish name, but they would be wrong. San Jose is actually located just to the southeast of San Francisco.

Like any other city in the state, it has the same insurance rules and a mix of state and city driving laws. But for its population, it has a rather low fatality rate for car accidents; which is a good thing for everyone.

San Jose Car Insurance Requirements

Every state that makes up the U.S. creates the insurance laws for the drivers within the boundaries of their state to follow. This means that insurance rules and regulations are the same throughout the entire state, freeing the cities and towns from having to create their own insurance laws. Quite frankly this makes it easier for drivers, since they only have to know the insurance laws for the state and not for each town and city they may move to or drive through.

In the state of California, if a person wants to register a vehicle they must have at least the minimum amount of insurance that the state requires. For California, the insurance coverage minimum is $15,000 in bodily injury liability coverage per person you injure, $30,000 in bodily injury coverage total if you injure more than one person, and $5,000 to help repair any damage you cause with your vehicle.

San Jose Traffic Laws

Even though insurance laws are always the same from one city to the next, many traffic laws are not. Here are some laws (city and state) to keep in mind when driving through San Jose so that you don’t get a ticket and end up with higher insurance rates:

• No texting
• No cell phones unless using a hands-free device
• If you are under 18, you are not allowed to touch any wireless device, including your cell phone, when driving.
• You are not allowed to use any spray coating on your license plate that impairs an electronic law enforcement device, like a red light camera, from reading and recognizing your plate.
• Driving or not, you cannot smoke in your vehicle if there is a minor inside also.
• If the weather is bad enough that you have to use your windshield wipers, then you also must turn on your headlights.

San Jose Crash Statistics

Per the California Highway Patrol, there were 3,049 car accidents in San Jose In 2010 that resulted in property damage. There were also 3,646 injuries and 36 fatalities from car accidents that same year. Compared to the rest of the county that San Jose is in (Santa Clara), the traffic fatalities in San Jose made up 43% of the total fatalities for the entire county.

However, compared to other large cities, only having 36 traffic fatalities in an entire year is something for San Jose to be proud of.