I don’t like to whine. So I won’t. A door ding would warrant a whine. But after an uninsured motorist caved in the back of my car to the tune of a $1,500 repair bill, I think I’m entitled to something more than that – if not a full Howard Dean scream, then certainly more than a whimper.

It was early on a Sunday morning, and I had run to Walgreen’s on a quick errand that turned into an hour-or-more ordeal after the other druver backed from his parking spot and into my car.

“I don’t have insurance,” he said after he backed his truck into my parked – perfectly parked – car.

“You don’t have insurance?”

“No,” he answered. “I’m a hurricane victim.”

I managed not to say that Iowa’s law requiring motorists to carry minimum liability coverage on their vehicles doesn’t include an exemption for victims of natural disasters. I also managed not to comment on the fact that he had managed to register his pickup in Polk County and get a Polk County driver’s license, yet the insurance thing slipped his mind.

“Now I’ve got to get a job to pay for the lady’s car,” he said, referring to me in the third person, which I find irritating even under pleasant circumstances. “What a way to ruin a Sunday morning.”

He said it again. “What a way to ruin a Sunday morning.” I was fairly certain he wasn’t speaking of mine. Only a tiny scratch on the bumper of his truck betrayed its involvement in the accident. I want extra points for only suggesting at that point that it might be better if we didn’t talk again until the police arrived.

I figured the guy would at least pay a fine for driving without insurance. He wasn’t ticketed, or even given a warning. His registration wasn’t confiscated, nor was his vehicle impounded, despite those being the provisions in the state law requiring liability coverage, found in Chapter 321.20B of the Iowa Code. The best explanation I received was that because the accident occurred in a private parking lot and the officer didn’t witness it, no citation was issued – even though the law assumes that if an accident occurs on private property, the motorist used a public street to get there.

Fortunately, my insurance policy is paid up. Also fortunately, I did not have to take food out of the mouths of babies to pay the $500 deductible, my share of the repairs. It’s lucky he hit my car, I guess.

There’s little consolation in knowing there are lots of other people in the same boat. The Insurance Information Institute says that despite liability insurance being compulsory in all but three states, the percentage of uninsured motorists is as high as 30 percent in some areas. The group also says that unless the odds of getting caught without insurance are high and the penalties are severe, drivers will continue to thumb their noses at the law.

At the very least, Iowa ought to require that proof of insurance be shown at the time a vehicle is registered, as is the case in half the states. Why doesn‘t it? “Administrative nightmare,” someone at the Iowa Department of Transportation explained. And at the very least, isn’t it reasonable to expect that a police officer will issue a citation when the motorist looks him in the eye and admits “I backed into the lady’s car” and “I don’t have insurance”?

Is it just me? Or do you feel like making Howard Dean proud, too?