You can't legally forego insurance (at least in the USA). But comprehensive insurance is silly to pay for an old car so you buy only liability so it's a lot cheaper.

At that tier you buy minimum coverage liability. That coverage is pretty cheap, but even so, many choose to risk it.

You get the absolute bare minimum required by your state, it basically just covers the other driver you hit. It's pretty awful since if you are badly injured beyond what their underinsured driver's coverage is for, you're likely not going to get a lot of money. You'll definitely get everything their policy states but the remainder comes out of your own uninsured motorist coverage and health insurance. People that buy bare minimum coverage typically don't have a lot of assets so there'll be nothing to recover from them directly.

Supposedly about 20% of drivers in El Paso are uninsured, so yes?

Usually, normal insurance is reasonable, or if it's not, you get liability only because the difference in cost is enough to buy another car after a few years.

Unfortunately there's a fair bit if industry built around charging people who are stretched financially more, but it's possible to avoid that.

I just carry liability. There's no point in comprehensive coverage on such a car. My car insurance costs about $500/yr.

I drove a $1000 car for a long time back in my poor days. You could get minimum liability insurance for $50/month or even less. Just whatever you needed to be able to drive legally. Thankfully I was never in any crashes but I always drove with the expectation that crashing would be financially ruinous and tried to be extra careful.

They typically carry liability