You know, I remember a story about a 90 year old, half blind driver who sped across an inner city road at freeway speeds, severed one bystander’s leg, and then crashed into a mall killing a mother and her daughter before exploding out of the other side.
This man got his driving license renewed without a test.
If it were your reponsibility to own, maintain, and control a road, you’d want to avoid liability for accidents on it. You’d want to avoid expenses on cleanup crews.
You would simply not allow irresponsible drivers.
You would ask for an accreditation agency that forces drivers to do a driving test and renew licenses every five years. And drivers without your preferred accreditation would simply not be allowed.
And elderly drivers would not get driving licenses renewed without a test.
The government encourages failure in drivers, because it takes the responsibility of safety upon itself by being in charge of driving tests, and lessens the incentive for the driver to be safe. He thinks that as long as he gets his driving license, he can be certain he is driving safely. If such a responsibility rested in your shoulders, you would drive more safely. And others would also ensure you drove more safely.
Nobody will insure you if you’re a bad driver. And private roads will probably prefer auto insurance to normal licenses, since auto insurance will lessen the costs of accidents for the private road.
The government licensing system “teaches” people how to drive at the safest moments and slowest speeds, hardly the training you’d need to actually avoid an accident. Perhaps I’d get a deduction on my insurance premiums if I voluntary take some professional courses and the like?
unless they don’t know you are a ‘bad’ driver… Licensing allows expertise in assesing peoples driving ability to be separated from expertise in insurance; with possible benefits due to increased division of labour. It may be profitable to allow drivers who can present ‘higher quality’ licenses that otherwise would have presented in the same risk pool, into their own.
Actually insurers spend an insane amount of resources and actuarial know-how on calculating the best rates for everyone. A system centuries, not decades but centuries, ahead of licenses.
Perhaps. If it turns out to make a statistically significant dent in the rates, they’ll pay for such data. Otherwise they’ll use their own, or, my favorite, no data but everyone’s past accidents and nothing else. That’s all you need.
Oh no! Value judgments! Somebody please excuse me from being called “objective” or a “scientist,” because I made the judgement call that drivers who crash and kill people are bad drivers. At the very least, they are bad drivers from their own perspective, from the perspective of insurers, from the perspective of the road owner, the perspective of the victims, and the perspective of every other sane, rational human being.
Anyway, back to the issue at hand, I’m sure that auto insurance companies would like some kind of demonstration proving that a driver seeking insurance is a GOOD, capable driver. That isn’t necessarily the same as a license and it avoids the coordination problem of licensing.
supplemental licensing and lower insurance premiums for holders thereof is presently a feature of our hampered market and should not be discounted out of hand. (not saying that anyone is)
At least in the example provided everyone knew the guy was half blind before he got behind the wheel. I’m sure an insurance company could do simple checks like a fax from your doctor where he claims you can adequately see, or something of that nature.
Let’s not assume anything from our current statist existence is going to endure more than a generation in a free market. The way we have been doing things has been so backward and forced for so long, it’s very hard to imagine life without little lies and habits.
Look, compared to some of the brilliant radicals on this forum, I am fairly moderate and middle of the road.*
And yet, even I am inclined to say this: Some times, people like to use the free market ad absurdum example. They don’t know how badly that backfires. Roads are the prime area where property rights are badly needed. There is a need for two-way road tarriffs to reduce congestion on every single intra-city road and a need to use those proceeds to bring better maintainance to them. There is a need for private owners of service lanes who collect funds from those who park there. And so on. Some may argue that governments can do these things. Sure! The problem here is a lack of property rights, we see not necessarilly the problem of government. If governments start doing these things, they move towards sellers of goods and services who can use those proceeds to function.
*(Heck, when I came here, I still supported intellectual property, before liberty student did not leave a leg for that idea to stand on, in a masterfully delivered debate.)
Not so sure. There are certainly numerous examples of private organizations adopting certification and standards to improve marketabililty. Might see the same sorta thing on private roads.