And is this is only in Virginia (is that were you live?)? How much roughly is this fee people have to pay to drive without insurance? Does 3rd party insurance not exist over there (where insurance only covers the damage you do to other people's property, not your own vehicle, in Britain that's lowest level of insurance and it's illegal to drive without insurance)?

The person causing the damage must be sued to recover damages. Applies to both public and private property damage. Probably not much recovery is possible from such people. Of course the local government generally will have funds to repair public property but a private person may not. Doesn't make much sense but that is how it works.

HA! Yes, that what our politicians would prefer, but most people in Britain still use cars to get around and our roads are often jammed. Only in big cities like London which have a proper public transport system do people prefer to not use cars, but elsewhere everyone drives. People just don't want to have to get the bus, maybe they're too lazy to walk to the stop, or the bus system isn't adequate (sometimes bus times just don't fit in with when people have to be at places), but if more people used the bus, more money would go into public transport and it would improve. And taxis are expensive, only wealthy people use them all the time, most people only use taxis when they've on a night out in town and all the buses have gone for the night.

When he means is small cars (hatchbacks, superminis) are getting bigger and bigger, a 3-series BMW is now much bigger than the one from the 80s.

The truth is European cars actually tend to be faster than US cars, they are more finely tuned and get more power out an engine. American cars may be bigger but they aren't exactly better, but our cars are more expensive, US cars are dirt cheap for their size.

A little example:

Sports Sedans:

Chevrolet Impala SS 5.3L V8: 303BHP

Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG 5.4L V8: 469BHP

BMW M5 5.0L V10: 500BHP

Luxury Cars:

Cadillac DTS 4.6L V8: 292BHP

Lincoln Town Car 4.6L V8: 239BHP

Jaguar XJ8 4.2L V8 Supercharged: 390BHP

Mercedes-Benz S450 4.6L V8: 335BHP

Maybe the American sedan I've picked aren't the best examples but I doubt any American sedan is as fast as the new M5.

Loads of power is not especially linked to big engine, in Europe there are sometimes engines with as many hp as big US engines, but on smaller ones (though that the difference is now quite smaller than what it was few tens of years ago)

Well what are normal driving conditions like in England? I bet you many British people just take a bus or taxi to get around. If not then they drive mainly smaller cars that don't have big engines with loads of power. If you want I could stop driving my family cars and wait until I get a Saturn Astra which is coming sometime soon.

In Europe I think that it would be the driver himself (rather than having his insurance paying for the damage that he made)

So when an uninsured driver damages public property who pays for that?

I don't know about all states but in Virginia you can pay a fee and drive without insurance. Not a good idea but its legal and that is why most folks carry a rider on their policy to cover them if they are hit by an uninsured driver.

I had to pay extra costs when my children began to drive (boys under 25 are more expensive) and I think most insurance companies are like that. The cost depends on the vehicle, sex of the driver, type of coverage and several other factors (my company offered a "good student" discount and a discount if they had received "driver education" at school.

There are no restrictions on the type of private car (including some trucks - you can rent a rather large van and drive legally for moving) you can drive but you have to have a special license for large commercial vehicles, motorcycles and vehicles for hire that carry passengers.

All I can say is that American car insurance must work very differently to British car insurance. I for one don't think it's fair that American teenagers can easily drive Cadillacs, SUVs, pickups and other large cars when British teenagers struggle to get insured on anything larger than a 1.6 litre Ford Focus. And I used to pay through the nose for my car insurance (now I'm a little older and I've been driving a few years it's not so bad), even if I'd been a named driver on one of my parent's cars it would still have cost more to add me (at 3rd party level) then they'd be paying for their own compresense converage (of course a 19-year-old is a higher risk than a 50-year-old whose been driving for 30 years). But it seems in America a parent only needs to a normal policy and his kid is covered drive the car, they don't have to pay extra, there doesn't seem to be any of this "named driver" stuff.