Compulsory Car Insurance.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18896, 11 January 1927, Page 8

Compulsory Car Insurance.

It has frequently been suggested in the Dominion that car-owners should, be compelled to take out insurance policies against accident, but except in the case of those who ply for hire publie opinion baa been unfavourable. It does not appear that opinion has bees very favourable in any country, though one quite definite experiment began on New Year's Day in Massachusetts. According to the New York Times, however, even the Massachusetts public have accepted the law with some uneasiness, while its supporters claim little more for it than that it" presents " possibilities of good which are worth " trying out." There is some evidence, all the same, that Bills on similar lines- have been prepared in other States, and will be brought forward if the Massachusetts experiment appears to be working out favourably. The Times says also that the only comprehensive experiment worth citing from another part of the world is that of Switzerland, and that its results have been disappointing. But the most in. teresting fact reported from Massachusetts is the hostility of the insur. ance companies. Publicly, one of their spokesmen says, the insurance companies take a neutral attitude. They "consider they are in the business to " provide indemnity needed by the pub. "lie under the laws for whose enact"went the public is responsible, and " that it is not for the insurance com"panies to take sides one way or an. " other." But privately, he declares, the companies are against compulsory insurance, regarding it as an attempt to " oure by legislation what can be "better and more cheaply prevented "than it can be cured." Here in New Zealand we express our objections from a slightly different angle, though they are not very much different in substance. We suspect compulsory insurance because the most it tan prevent is inability to pay compensation once an accident has happened, but also because we have had enough, and far more than euough, attention from the State already. It is not proposed in Masaachusotts to provide compensation for every injury and death, regardless of fault and responsibility, nor does the Act cover claims against property. But even within this limited scope of security it is obvious that if it has any effect at all on the number of accidents the result will be to incrcasa them. In Switzerland, so they seem to have satisfied themselves in New

York, tie.Btimbgr of accidents under compulsory insurance has increased considerably, and even if we allow for the intrusion of other factors —speed, for example, and an increase in the proportion of people driving <*Vh and, so }jj tjie proportion of people ÜBfitted to drive them—we should at least expect that the man who is a careless driver when carelessness carries a heavy financial responsibility will not be less careless when he is guaranteed ] against claims for compensation. Besides, many of the accidents of the road are caused by pedestrians, or by people who drive cars which other people own, and in that large body of eases compulsory insurance can have onh- a remote effect.