Perhaps. But it just looks futile to me: if an insurer pledges to fund all damages caused by this guy, do you really care whether he’s been certified by some folks who do not really care? Still, we’ll of course have to wait and see.
As I mentioned earlier, I think the insurers will provide incentives to actually be trained properly by professionals, such as lower premiums or perhaps more cashback if you you’re accident free for a specific frame of time. I dunno, this is why the market is beautiful.
Abandoning drivers’ licenses is quite possible. But then, new drivers would have to pay larger premiums, and if they maintain a good track record, the premium could be lowered.
I would never buy insurance of any sort for the reason that I explained in the sticky thread on free banking. The insurance industry has higher risk (insolvency due to fractional reserve) than anything it insures.
I agree with most of what you had to say. Private roads along with defense were the two major problems I initially had with anarcho-capitalism. I forget where I heard this from, but I believe it was Dr. Block’s book, “Privatization of Roads and Highways.” One of the ways he suggested it would work is that businesses in a city would pay the company for open use of the roadway so that all their potential customers would be able to get to their store. This was one of the more plausible explanations I’ve heard in regards to large cities. My initial objection was, “how would this work without a toll booth at every intersection?” The question is laughable now, but I really could not grasp how it would work.
Now assuming that is how they would function, where the clients are simply business owners needed them open to customers, I seriously doubt a license of any sort would be required. I could see some kind of voluntary licensing agency that may work with the insurance companies allowing you to get lower premiums or even express lanes on highways (which may have automated toll booths). I would be very curious to see how the market would actually work with private roads though. I can see certain highways requiring special credentials, especially if it were a highway that curved around a mountain, had no enforced speed limit, etc.
I was watching some science channel thing, and this got me thinking. Insurance companies could put a sensor on your dash that watches your eyes to keep track of how often you keep them on the roads and have that hooked up to some computer in the car, that knows the speed of the vehicle at the times your looking away. This might be a good indicator of how much of a distracted driver you are, which could lead to an accurate prediction of how many accidents you will get into.
It’d probably make you feel uneasy and less relaxed while driving, exactly what you don’t want if you’re the insurer. Plus who likes being watched on his ‘territory’?
And more generally, people are different. What makes you drive safely, make not work with me. Hence, the best approach, it would seem to me, it to just charge folks according to what they actually did cost you in the past (ok, it’s not that simple but that’s the basic idea). Thus, people know that the less careful they are, the more it is going to cost them in premium. And then let everyone think about improving his own driving skills. To each his due, say I!
Mmhh one alternate form that might arise are “driving certificates”
Something in the same vein that many jobs demand that you have High School Diplomas, College Degrees, and Masters or Doctorates, an insurance company could ask for proof of a certificate that demonstrates you are a legit graduate of a driving academy.