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Two camps. One just runs on the insurance as if it was stock. And if they ever need their policy, they are going to be financially bankrupted.

The other camp is actually insured and yes it’s ridiculously expensive.

For example if you just have a new bumper or body kit with standard insurance, and someone tbones you, you’re standard insurance will probably pay out but will assume your car is worth less than stock because of modifications.

But if you have that body kit, and you run over a pedestrian, you’re going to personally be responsible because the insurance will say you modified the crash tested crumple and pedestrian zones on your vehicle. That violets the contract you have. Not only will they not pay, they’ll drop your policy. Then you’ll have to pay the millions for paralyzing little Timmy.

Best case scenario for standard insurance is you buy a $500 Fiero, do $50k of modifications to make it awesome. Someone crashes into you, and they total your car for $500. That’s the value of the vehicle.

As another data point one of my collector cars is a low mileage 1980’s vintage. It’s worth 6 figures and while the past few years is a garage queen, I do actually drive it on the road. I have special insurance for it that will pay to “restore” the vehicle in the case of an accident. You can’t buy parts new, and 99% of mechanics won’t even touch it. So anything in a shop is going to be ridiculously expensive. That’s what my insurance pays for. To make it back to current condition after an issue. I pay 200x to insure the vehicle than I do to register it on the road with the government.

Fiero is the literal go to car, there is tons of info out there.

Emmisions is usually combined with safety and road worthiness in the context of a road inspection. Emmisions also has requirements like no check engine lights, no electric faults, etc. In a modern car if you disconnect the radio you’ll get a check engine light. It might even refuse to start without additional hacks. So you’d have to go old school. And some of those old school engines are better when running with a CEL but a modern parallel system in place of the 40 year old onboard diagnostics.

Insurance companies won’t cover vehicles with extensive modifications. Making a kit car is basically a giant red flag. You haven’t crash tested it to see how safe you are or how safe the school child you accidental mow down is. You also don’t have inspections and insurance as the builder to make sure every bolt and weld is actually secure. If you get into a wreck with your kit car, you’re going to be on the hook yourself for all your damage, all the other people’s damage, and all the property damage. Even a streetlight can cost 5 digits easily, 6 digits by the time you pay a city crew to remove the old one, do environmental inspections, install new one, etc. It’s ridiculous. But you need the insurance to register the vehicle in most places, so that’s why you get it. The cheapest crappiest insurance to allow you to register the car. Then you make sure your umbrella policies cover you. That’s why this is a rich man’s game, to drive custom and one off vehicles. The other trick being you actually insure it yourself with a trust, back that with general insurance for everyone else, and personal insurance for you. But you don’t even look at this sort of thing unless you’re in the 0.1%.

You can think of it like why a salvaged title vehicle won’t be insurable by most companies. It’s a liability game. The whole western world runs on liabitly, and that’s where the money is.

People do this all the time with kit cars. The issue is that a modern corolla is a unibody design. That body style and panels are actually the frame of the vehicle. You can’t really reshape it into an arbitrary shape.

This is why something like the Fiero is so popular as a kit car base. You take the panels off and you actually have a mid engine vehicle with a skeleton steel frame and then you can bolt on whatever you want.

Many areas allow kit cars to be registered under the original vin. Most insurance companies won’t cover you for anything. You might be able to trick one into covering the original vehicle with the original vin even though it’s modified. But if you ever need anything from them they’ll refuse and cancel your policy.

In jurisdictions with emissions or regulation testing, you’ll probably never get it approved for the road.

My choices are generally not popular with an American audience. There’s a lot of propaganda in the world, everyone does it, but the US is the best at it so it can be very difficult to see things outside those borders.

I live all over the world, still do. But I spent over 20 years in the US primarily. I lived in low crime, affluent areas. But the low crime is still absurdly high crime, but is normalized. I won’t share all my story but being victimized for my possessions was annoying, but not the end of the world. That’s what insurance is for. My breaking point was the second time I was almost murdered by the police for being the wrong colour in my own neighbourhood. I’m talking guns pointed at me for no reason and lots more I don’t discuss.

My primary residence is now in the Middle East. Almost immediately, most people make a confused face and the first questions are usually “why” followed by “aren’t you worried about…” and then a laundry list of manufactured issues that don’t actually exist, or exist equally where they live.

The bottom line is that my front door is unlocked and stays unlocked. When I go the park, beach, mall, restaurant, wherever I can reserve a spot by dropping my wallet or cell phone and walking away without worry. I have all the modern conveniences of the USA and more. I use an app on my phone and a fuel truck comes to me to fill up my car. Leave your keys on the windshield like everyone else and they will fill you up as you’re elsewhere. Use the app and get laundry services washed, dried, and folded with pickup from your house and drop off with tip for the cost of a cup of coffee. No tipping culture of 50%, a dollar or two is plenty. I can buy a meal in a restaurant that feeds 4 people for about $5 with apps, entrees, dessert, and tip. I can also buy a stupid gold steak for $2000. The choice is mine.

Public transport works. Food from every part of the world is minutes away. A woman can walk by themselves at 3am with no fear.

I’m currently on a holiday to a different country a few hours away. My door is still unlocked.

When I talk to Americans that have made the move they almost all say the same thing. It takes a few weeks for the constant fear and guard to start to drop. It takes about 2 years before you start to live without that burden.

Every time I am in the US it is just worse and worse. Crime, political discourse, and just general everyday anger between people in every interaction. Walking down a sidewalk or road rage or unfriendly staff, just general anger. When you’re around it constantly, you never really notice it. You only notice the extreme outbursts. But when you go somewhere that’s finally peaceful, you then become aware of the constant noise and the huge outbursts.

Only other thing I’ll mention as this is way too long already, is that the excuse of “I can’t just pack up and move” is just an easy excuse. You absolutely can. It isn’t easy. It can be isolating if you’re going by yourself. But you can. One of my grandparents fled from war with nothing but a single suitcase for 3 children and the 2 adults. Lost everything they had to get a better life and start fresh. Another grandparent immigrated with a whole ship worth of crap. My parents immigrated yet again with moving trucks. I immigrated by air and a couple suitcases filled with everything in the world I hold important.

It takes more money and privilege to immigrate with your possessions. But that’s a luxury upgrade. It isn’t a requirement.

In uncivilized countries like the USA I’ve had many things stolen from my porch, from my car, even an entire car.

I now choose to spend most of my time where I can leave my valuables unwatched in public and my house door unlocked. Living in fear and around crime, adds so much stress, anxiety, and general angst to your everyday life. Life is too short to live in a terrible place

Dude, Dubai is more progressive than most of the USA or UK. Don’t believe the media.

I live all over the world, but also have residency there as a registered atheist. Nicest people you’ll ever meet.

It’s 90% expats. And a huge Indian population. If you want to live like in India, you can. If you want to live like in the UK, you can. You have freedom of choice far superior to any other country in the world.

These are not really Indian issues but poor people issues. Social mobility is a tough thing. If you’re born poor, you stay poor in most places. If your born rich you can stay rich or become poor. If you’re middle class you’ll probably end up poor unless you are relatively lucky with the way inflation and capitalism works.

If you want to “escape India” for better chances, just get to Dubai and start over. You’ll earn more and can start planning for later.

The old ones have seats with about 72in of lie flatness which is 6ft. But unless you sleep like a Victorian ghost, most people bend their knees or legs somehow. My friend that is 6ft4in has no issues and he’s tall and wide.

Most of the new ones are 76in to 82in. 6ft 10in is pretty generous. And if you need longer, there are first class seats which are full beds and you’d have no issue.

I fly in a pod every few weeks for 12hr+ flights and it’s very comfortable. I am hoping blimp travel makes a come back as I’d love to take the scenic way back with a full suite one day.

Let’s use Flash!

I adjusted it for inflation already.

May your marinara sauce never cling to your pasta!

This is the sort of weird back in the day post that doesn’t make sense. Boomers not understanding house prices and minimum wage, that is true.

This plane ticket stuff is wrong. For about the same cost as a ticket back in the day you get way more. In 1955, a one way transatlantic flight was roughly £5k. That’s $6.3k freedom dollars, one way. You can today buy a ticket on that type of route for half that price that includes a lie flat bed, amenities and pyjamas, 2 hot meals, unlimited snacks, unlimited drinks, lounge access on departure and arrival, priority check-in, boarding an ungodly amount of luggage, etc. And in the lounges you get free food cooked to order, free unlimited drinks, free second tier food like buffets, etc.

If you want to spend the equivalent money or a bit more, you could fly even better. You can have a private chef onboard making a meal for you anytime you want. You can take a shower in the sky. You can have a literal bedroom and attached private living room in a mini suite just for you. And that’s flying commercial.

The other side of it is that now people can also buy a ticket for $25. Which would be completely unfathomable back when civil rights weren’t a thing.

I mean it’s pretty common. I’ve not eaten at Chick Fil A for years or shopped in a Hobby Lobby since the religious health insurance crap. Just two big examples. Many people choose to not support companies that are in blatant opposition to their values. And me not buying at hobby lobby did mean I purchased my supplies from an alternate vendor. So I could say I bought from alternate vendor to strike back at the conservative culture…

On your own private media server. If you plan on watching any content that the Mouse owns, you better archive and save it. Because they randomly edit or straight up delete content all the time.

All the Steamboat willy stuff will never be released on their shitty platform. Just like Song of the South won’t be.

Reddit moderators.

2nd worst, Lemmy moderators

While I know most Americans feel that way it isn’t true.

Migrants, refugees, immigrants… These words apply to white Americans as much as they do to brown central Americans or darker Africans. When you’re wealthy you become an expat.

A expat can pack up their stuff, fly somewhere else, get residency and citizenship based on investment, and that’s it. Very easy in the 2010’s.

If you don’t have the money for it, you can still go but you’re going to be limited where you can go fully legally. You may have to illegally work to get to a “desirable” location.

But most people who are in the USA came because of relatives that left everything behind except 1 trunk/suitcase and went for it. It is not easy. But it is possible.

To say you just can’t because it’s expensive is the lazy way out. You can’t do it comfortably and easily if you’re poor. But you can walk across the Mexican border, 2000 miles walk, just like others do in reverse. You just choose not to.

For Americans and Canadians on a budget, southeast Asia is a great place. Easy cheap visas and lots of countries to do border runs if you need. You can cheaply buy residency in many of them.

You escape BEFORE the regime change. You do not wait to escape.

It was evident that this was the path the US chose in 2008 election vitriol and then 2012 with the tea party. Then in 2016 Trump, it was as blatant as can be. You’ve had 8 years to plan and leave. You now have 6 months.

Make sure you have a passport. You should have been trying to obtain secondary citizenship. Even with all the money and education, you are only allowed to stay in a foreign country on a residency visa. Americans call theirs a green card for example. It is tied to your passport. When your passport expires, OR IS CANCELLED, then all the visas tied to it are also affected. In some places you can stay as you transfer your visa to your new passport. Some places you cannot, you must exit and re-enter. If your passport is invalid, you can only exit back to the USA if you are only American. The cancelled part is the scary part because the USA already does this. If you don’t pay your taxes, or child support or if you have a warrant or even probable cause against you the US will cancel your passport. It’s the easiest way to force Americans back home for prosecution.

Your #1 goal should be starting to obtain citizenship elsewhere. If you have grandparents from Europe, see if you can get it. You have relatives in Canada, mayve you can get it. If you can’t, then start looking to buy citizenship or residency with a path to citizenship. This is 6 figures and can be instant like Vanuatu or take years like most of Europe. But again, better to start now.

As the Chinese routinely say, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time, is now.

The US is vast and it’s unlikely to devolve into anarchy. It may get very violent and bloody or it may become more like a governmental issue where you just get locked up if you’re bad. In that case storing some of your stuff in a storage area isn’t too risky. If it goes into anarchy, then it’ll be lost. Otherwise just keep paying and avoid.

I believe we’re looking right at 1930’s Germany. The parallels are uncanny. Those who survived, left. Those that waited until they were being rounded up to leave, mostly did not make it. And they lost everything they had and their families ever had.

I completed my move out 4 years ago now. I can now eat popcorn and watch the US implode from the other side of the world. I will lose some money, some possessions, and unimportant things. But my keepsakes and most of my assets are now free of the US.