What's the worst that can happen?

Someone close to me had an accident with a guy who didn't have car insurance, which is illegal where I live. The accident was also his fault: he didn't realize traffic in front of him was slowing down.  His story is that he was abroad when his car insurance ran out and figured it can wait a few more days. The damage he caused to both cars added up to several thousand dollars, which it seems he can't afford. He's in trouble.

Now what happened to this guy, assuming his story is true, is an extremely low probability event. Everyone has, at one point or another, delayed attending to something because they figured it's not a big deal. Statistics teaches us that the value of a high probability, low impact event is the same as the value of a low probability, high impact event.

Except that one will probably set you back a bit, while the other just might put you out of the game altogether.