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Better Call Saul, but it's set in New Orleans and real.

Fascinating long read from this week's New Yorker. On one level, the slammer conspiracy was an amusing example of New Orleans chicanery at its most baroque, a tale of literal highway robbery so antic and absurd that it seemed like the plot of an Elmore Leonard novel. But, on a deeper level, it was an awful parable of economic desperation in twenty-first-century America. Scores of poor Black Louisianans had volunteered for what was effectively Russian roulette, risking their own lives and the lives of their loved ones in the hope of a onetime payout. The attorneys, by contrast, were well educated and mostly white, and would almost certainly have been loath to climb into a car with Garrison and go looking for a truck to hit.
posted by Paul Slade on Apr 16, 2026 at 5:28 AM

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When I first read this, I was horrified. The central concept is terrifying; one of my worst nightmares made real. As I've mulled over it the last few days, however, I realize that I, from Louisiana, know many people who would do this. Maybe I would have done it back when I was more desperate.

As an aside, shout out to the good people of New Orleans for understanding jury nullification.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:06 AM

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There was an old Law & Order episode that had this as the central plot. I know insurance scam shit has been around for as long as insurance has been a thing but good lord, such a terrifying thing for people to be a part of.
posted by Fizz at 6:22 AM

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Astonishing. And a superb read, not least because its by Patrick Radden Keefe who always, always delivers.
posted by The Bellman at 6:26 AM

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First, that writing was fantastic. I felt guilty enjoying the style, even as the facts are jaw-dropping.

Second, the situation is just fractal horrible -- appalling on a personal level for the slammers & passengers, to whom it somehow looks like a viable living; the callousness of the lawyers and doctors is absolutely chilling: unnecessary spine surgery?!; and the way that insurance costs snowball for the whole community because of these crooks, in order to spare the insurers' profits, is just...ugh. Zoom in or zoom out, it's just so horrible.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:57 AM

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Two decades ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an advisory about "Staged Auto Accident Fraud," warning of daredevils in cars "crammed full of passengers" who braked abruptly, causing the vehicle behind to rear-end them, then filed bogus claims about soft-tissue injuries, which were "difficult for doctors to confirm."

One of the many reasons to hate this behaviour:

it makes life even harder for people who actually DO have legitimate soft tissue injuries from car accidents, which can be seriously disabling.

I have had episodes of severe (and severely disabling) left hip pain since the driver of a bus I was in took a corner far too fast on a rainy day, and I (and my wheelchair) were flung from the right hand side of the bus aisle to the left hand side of the bus aisle. I landed HARD on the floor of the bus on my left hip, with 150 kilograms of power wheelchair on top of me.

People pretending injuries they don't actually have (or exaggerating injuries that they do have), makes life harder for people with real injuries who are telling the truth about those injuries.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:04 AM

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Having lived so long outside of the US, I am always astounded at the volume of personal injury billboards along interstates - from city to rural. This is just not something I see at the same level in Canada.
posted by Kitteh at 7:26 AM

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This is just not something I see at the same level in Canada.

yet

the tip of the spear has been poking into our lives for at least a generation, there are 2 personal injury firms with prominent ads for every Oilers game broadcast by SNW for example. The billboards have been going up for a while, I'd say the difference is (so far) scope vs. kind

see also: militarization of law enforcement, two-tier and pay-to-play healthcare, more and more private schooling ("freedom and choice" of course).

sorry, I do fight this stuff, but I'd say most people are pretty okay with it till it's too late
posted by runsrealgood at 7:33 AM

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Kitteh: "Having lived so long outside of the US, I am always astounded at the volume of personal injury billboards along interstates - from city to rural. This is just not something I see at the same level in Canada."

I live in Portland, OR. When we went to Tucson for Christmas last year, we flew into Phoenix and drove down to Tucson, about a 100 mile drive. I was ASTOUNDED at the number of personal injury billboards we saw on that drive - literally every couple miles there were a cluster of them. And they were all over Tucson as well. You just don't see that in and around Portland. I mean, we do have personal injury lawyers here, and they do advertise, but not nearly at that volume.

So it's not that bad everywhere!
posted by pdb at 8:00 AM

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what a tremendous read. putting on my reporter hat for a second...

you love it when there's a court case with lengthy depositions and when the prosecutors have done the work. (I did a long story once on an illegal interstate drug scam some doctors were running and oh man but there was gold in those documents). Keefe had a lot of great material to work with, and it's tempting to say the story just writes itself -- but it doesn't. You still have to craft a narrative and define the "characters" and he does a masterful job with that.

In a stack on my bedside table I have his book "Say Nothing," about Northern Ireland and the IRA, and I think it's about to leap to the top of the stack.
posted by martin q blank at 8:00 AM

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Yes a fantastic read and yes a horrifying story. Thanks for the post!
posted by Bella Donna at 8:36 AM

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Public healthcare, mandatory auto insurance through the public insurer in a no-fault system. Not perfect, but it removes that bullshit.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:21 AM

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Fantastic article.

I'm about halfway through Patrick Radden Keefe's new book.

Which is also fantastic.
posted by Thivaia 2.0 at 11:22 AM

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Public healthcare, mandatory auto insurance through the public insurer in a no-fault system. Not perfect, but it removes that bullshit.


Not that I don't think public health care is good, what are you going to do about "pain and suffering" awards? Eliminate them? So, not really "removing that bullshit" if you mean the scams.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 11:33 AM

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I think WaterandPixels means that here in Canada, we have a public healthcare system and at least in Quebec, there is mandatory coverage through the DMV when you get your license. Like, when I got my license when I lived in Sherbrooke, I was automatically covered to a certain extent without an additional outside policy. Outside policies are normal in Ontario too, but some stuff is covered by the provincial government as part of the license fee.
posted by Kitteh at 11:50 AM

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Correction: not in Ontario, baby! But Quebec has a public auto insurance plan that is included in the cost of your license so you're covered for any bodily injury you incur driving, whether or not you are in the province. Add to the fact we already have universal healthcare, it makes for a softer landing, even if it isn't perfect.
posted by Kitteh at 12:30 PM

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Update: I got in touch with an old friend, an attorney who began his career in New Orleans. I told him, I've got a story that I think you'll get a kick out of. You might even know some these people.

Oh, he more than knows them, as it turns out. He actually represented one of them in court -- a long time ago, in cases unrelated to the events of the story. Wild.
posted by martin q blank at 2:47 PM

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[Fixed the formatting in Thivaia 2.0's comment!]
posted by mod_adrienneleigh at 3:14 PM

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seems like a foreseeable result of massive inequality
posted by ryanrs at 11:13 PM

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There is some precedent for this: Nub City, Florida, late 1950s.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:09 AM

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Such a Louisiana story.

It's a bit like a lottery, closer to Jorge Luis Borges or Shirley Jackson's.
posted by doctornemo at 5:49 PM

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