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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27196 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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Why don't we get rid of driver's licences entirely and just rely on car insurance? If you pose a risk to others by not having the skill to drive or by having some medical condition, your insurer could require its own tests. It could ask you to get a licence from a third party private organization. Then the free market would figure out the optimal test of driving ability.

I don’t like the idea of a market where the insurer sets the rules and collects the profits, but all the work of enforcement still falls on the state.

what if someone just doesn't get insurance then...

Well that would be a crime and could be deterred in the usual ways ("What if someone just gets drunk and gets behind the wheel of a car tho?") except that enforcement would be a political problem because of so many illegal immigrants who can't get insurance.

Do you think the type of person who won't/can't get a driver's licence will have insurance? And if insurance companies won't cover you unless you pass a test, then you just drive without insurance.

But surely nobody would be so careless! Well, about that...

About 13% of people on the road are uninsured drivers.

Car insurance is required in nearly every state. However, there are around 29 million uninsured drivers in the U.S. That means about one out of every eight drivers doesn't have car insurance.

The percentage of uninsured motorists varies by state. In Mississippi, 29% of drivers don't have insurance. In New Jersey, only 3% of drivers are uninsured.

Some people don't have insurance because they can't afford it. Some because they don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. And seeing as how you may be more likely to be hit by a bad driver, the combination of "no licence/no insurance, what you gonna do about it?" doesn't fill me with confidence.

It seems like the responsible types get lumbered with the fallout from the careless:

Nearly half of U.S. states require drivers to have uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. With this coverage, the insurance company pays for your car repairs and medical bills if you're hit by a driver who doesn't have insurance.

There are two forms of uninsured motorist coverage:

Uninsured motorist bodily injury (UMBI) Uninsured motorist property damage (UMPD) States typically only require UMBI to cover injuries and medical bills. But some, such as the District of Columbia, also require UMPD coverage to cover car repairs.

To be less serious, it seems we can blame the French for introducing driving licences:

On 14 August 1893, the world’s first driving licences were introduced in Paris.

Driving licences were first envisioned by Louis Lépine who was the top civil servant at the Seine police department in Paris.

I cannot figure out what your point is. Yes, I agree that people driving without insurance is bad. But I don't see how my proposal would have any effect on the number of people driving without insurance.

You're shifting the licensing requirement from the government to the insurers. Now, either insurance companies insure everybody regardless of competence (which means they get landed with responsibility for 'this legally blind drunk driver ploughed into a line of toddlers and you insured him') or they use their own set of tests before insuring drivers.

If they set their own set of tests, it's likely that some people will fail them. So they still end up with no licence. And if people are lying on forms or avoiding going to the doctor because of conditions they think will disqualify them from getting a licence, they'll either lie the same way to the insurance companies, or just not bother with getting insurance. And allegedly 13% of drivers in the USA are already driving uninsured, so driving without a licence isn't that big a step either.

Sure, but at least they'll only have to lie about things that actually affect their driving ability enough for insurance companies to care about them, and the insurance companies will be incentivized to find ways around these problems, such as by making certain medical tests mandatory.

Then if the insurance companies make tests mandatory or no insurance, how is that different from the government making regulations?

I do think there is room in between "ah feck it, if you can turn the key in the ignition you get a licence" and "if you so much as sneeze you're off the road", but I don't think this is a problem that is solvable purely by market forces. The first person injured or killed in an accident by someone 'licensed' by the insurance company, and there will be calls for more stringent standards. More stringent standards = incentive to lie or not report conditions. And that brings us back to where we started, except that now they're lying to the insurance company, not the driving licence department.

it necessarily would increase it if there are more people on the road. but how many people it has an effect on doesn't matter. in your proposed world, if X% of drivers don't have insurance, that's X% of drivers that have never been tested.

look, driver's tests may be incredibly easy to pass, but it is a working high-pass filter. if someone (not on the basis of discrimination like what the Aussies want to do) can't get a driver's license because they've failed a driver's test, what makes you think they're going to get insurance for driving if they can't pass that exam?

and what's even worse now is that you have people who have been previously filtered out of driving altogether are now both on the road and uninsured.

that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

That's what I had thought as well. It might work in a place with functional public transportation, where most of the potentially uninsured aren't working jobs that require carrying many tools, but in most of the US people still need to drive, whether they're insured or not.

I suspect that insurance companies would ask you to take a driving test, how else are you they supposed to know you have the minimum acceptable levels of competence, before further actuarial concerns?

OK, so why don't we find out? There's a good chance they would come up with a better system of testing and licensing than we have now. Is there any reason the government needs to issue licences?

I am modestly libertarian, so I have no fundamental disagreement with 3rd parties providing licenses or the insurance route, I just happen to think government licensing is adequate and the majority of the debate is over whether refusals to license based on specific diseases like autism or sleep apnea are warranted.

We wouldn't need to have those debates though if we relegated the question to the free market, and I'm wondering if there is any good reason why we don't just do that.

Why you think so?

Effect on public safety depends on how well payouts of insurance companies (via laws and court system) are correlated with damage to public safety.

If payouts for accidents caused by someone driving with sleep apnea without XYZ treatment are much higher, then insurance companies will demand the same as discussed here.

If they can avoid payouts while damaging public safety they will happily do this.

You still need to decide on payouts via legislation/shaping court system. With the same debates happening in a bit different place.

(unless you propose to privatise also legislation and court system and have multiple ones competing at once but that is clearly not "why we don't just do that.")

The level of competence that maximizes insurance company profits is not necessarily going to be the same as the level of competence which best* satisfies the tradeoff between public safety and the individuals' interest in being able to drive.

*There can of course be a variety of best tradeoffs, since "best" depends on how one weighs the competing interests. But insurance companies do not directly take either of those factors into account when deciding whether to insure someone.

But it likely does maximize the tradeoff between public safety and the individuals' interest in being able to drive plus their interests in saving other costs. And it probably maximizes the tradeoff you mentioned better than driver's licences do.

And it probably maximizes the tradeoff you mentioned better than driver's licences do.

I don't see how you can know that, nor is it likely to be true, given that the insurance company doesn't particularly care about either one.

The insurance companies want to maximize public safety so as to minimize their payouts. They want to minimize the costs for their policy holders to maximize the demand for their products.

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We wouldn't need to have those debates though if we relegated the question to the free market

Your simple faith in this religion of the free market is touching, I have to say. There's an argument that the instances in the original post are indeed over-regulation for the sake of it, but to put it all on the free market is optimistic in the extreme.

Every insurance company has its own licensing body? Multiple licensing bodies? Or in effect a monopoly? Any common standard, or LicenzRUz gives you one if you can turn the ignition on, nothing more required (and the insurance companies that take this licence then charge you out the nose for coverage) while Rules Rule Inc. ask for your family medical history three generations back?

Law cases even more lucrative for lawyers as the survivors of person killed in crash by "minimum requirements only" licence holder fight it out with the insurers, and judges have to rule on whether the driver was adequately licenced or not? This is where we get things like "Jet's Law" in the first place, and the subsequent over-reach. Adjusting the free market grave by grave may be one way of doing it, but I think most people would prefer a less final method than "Okay, fifty thousand extra deaths due to lax licence rules, pressure on insurers to put pressure on third party bodies to tighten up their requirements".

Whatever way you do it, the government is going to get dragged in by cases such as led to Jet's Law. After all, the 'free market' allowed the epileptic driver to operate a vehicle, and it was the consequences of that which involved the government:

The State Coroner recommended the following actions be taken:

Review of practices concerning the forwarding of discharge summaries from hospitals in Queensland (both public and private) to ensure uniform consistent practice in forwarding a patient's discharge summary to the patient's general practitioner.

Review of legislation to require any doctor becoming aware of a patient suffering any epileptic event which would, in that doctor's opinion adversely impact on the patient's ability to safely drive a motor vehicle, to specifically discuss the issue with the patient at the consultation. The legislation should require the doctor to; (i) advise the patient if the doctor considers it inappropriate to continue to drive, (ii) set a period of time and/or refer the patient to an appropriate specialist for further management and advice concerning suitability to drive. (iii) provide written confirmation of the doctor's advice to the patient.

Review of legislation to consider whether and in what circumstances a driver, and/or a treating doctor should be required to inform the Transport Department of a medical condition (such as epilepsy) or a change in the medical condition of a person impacting on their ability to safely drive. Consideration of whether sanctions should apply against a driver and/or a treating medical officer if they fail to report relevant information.

Review of legislation (after consultation with relevant interest groups) to consider a panel of independent doctors available to accept referrals for assessment of suitability to drive in the context of epilepsy. The panel would be available to review a driver's eligibility to drive and to inform the Department of Transport accordingly.

Initiative by the Department of Transport or other appropriate agency or authority to publicise both to the public and the medical profession the Guidelines for Fitness to Drive. Emphasis should be given to a responsibility to review a person's fitness to drive in circumstances where there is any alteration in the person's medical condition likely to impact on their ability to safely drive a motor vehicle.

Review of current Australian standards of child safety restraint mechanisms taking into consideration world best practice standards, despite Jet having been restrained properly.

Your simple faith in this religion of the free market is touching, I have to say. There's an argument that the instances in the original post are indeed over-regulation for the sake of it, but to put it all on the free market is optimistic in the extreme.

If it were faith, I wouldn't be asking for reasons why it might not work. I don't think you're quite going this far, but there's this really common and very annoying thing that a lot of people do where, if you express any kind of belief that markets ever work, you're accused of being a free market fundamentalist. It's a subject on which people struggle to see nuance and seem to default to gesturing vaguely at market failures which they've heard exist but can never explain why any given case is one.

Every insurance company has its own licensing body? Multiple licensing bodies? Or in effect a monopoly? Any common standard, or LicenzRUz gives you one if you can turn the ignition on, nothing more required (and the insurance companies that take this licence then charge you out the nose for coverage) while Rules Rule Inc. ask for your family medical history three generations back?

Competition and choice would be great, but we can't do worse than the current monopoly.

Law cases even more lucrative for lawyers as the survivors of person killed in crash by "minimum requirements only" licence holder fight it out with the insurers, and judges have to rule on whether the driver was adequately licenced or not?

Why would it matter whether the driver was licensed? The compensation would be based on the harm caused and who was at fault. Why would this be any more difficult than it is already?

This is where we get things like "Jet's Law" in the first place, and the subsequent over-reach.

How so?

Adjusting the free market grave by grave may be one way of doing it, but I think most people would prefer a less final method than "Okay, fifty thousand extra deaths due to lax licence rules, pressure on insurers to put pressure on third party bodies to tighten up their requirements".

I'm not following this at all. What do you mean by "final"? Why would there be an increase in deaths? Why would there be any kind of grave-by-grave adjustment of the free market?

Whatever way you do it, the government is going to get dragged in by cases such as led to Jet's Law. After all, the 'free market' allowed the epileptic driver to operate a vehicle, and it was the consequences of that which involved the government:

Why would the government get dragged in?

Why would the government get dragged in?

Because the government has the legislative power, and when the public want Something Must Be Done, it's the government that gets called on to do it - mostly to pass laws so This Can't Happen Again.

Why would there be an increase in deaths?

Very simple example: If I speed, I cop a fine and a certain number of demerit points off my license. If I lose too many demerit points, I lose my license and risk going to jail if I continue to drive without a license. All of this applies pressure to me to drive at a safe speed.

In an insurance-only system, I face no penalty until I cause a crash and potentially kill someone.

Your insurance company could impose penalties on you as part of the agreement to be insured by them. They could also do things to prevent you from getting in the accident in the first place. The whole point of my proposal is that insurance companies should have the same tools available to them to prevent accidents as we currently give the government (including the right to issue and revoke licences to their customers), but with the only difference being an incentive to do it right.

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How is criminal law meant to tie into this? People who value retributive justice aren’t going to be satisfied with someone simply getting sued out their arse.

I guess they won't be satisfied then. I don't think the justice system should be retributive.

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