The point of mandatory third party insurance is so that when you drive through the putative crowd of children waiting for the bus, the state and the victim's families are not on the hook for lifetime care costs which can easily be in the tens of millions of dollars per victim.

Idk seems like a get out of jail free card when you should probably be in debt for life, slaving away for your grave negligence, not let off the hook because you paid 100$ a month.

Let off the hook? That's what criminal penalties are for.

Without mandatory insurance those victims wouldn't get anything.

There can be other systems than private subsidized insurance for that, criminal penalties are rare. It would need to be like a dui for that to work.

That’s no good to the victim, is it.

You can't really retroactively fix things with money, the idea that it "compensates" in some equal way is simply wrong. Money helps with the medical bills, disability, etc. It's better than nothing, but even if you pursue civil or criminal litigation it's not going make any one else take paying attention to controlling their heavy machinery more seriously. The perception of consequences diminishes, even though there are real consequences they seem like tail end risks since causing an accident doesn't typically result in jail time or civil litigation. I guess my hypothesis, based on a single observation is that people take extra risk because they have insurance and so feel like if they get in a wreck - it won't be that bad and they might get a new car.

The social contract is really to fix the damage your (at fault) collisions cause.

At least in jurisdictions I've been in, the state requires evidence of financial responsibility as a requirement for driving. (Enforcement is a separate issue from requirement). A car insurance policy is evidence of financial responsibility, and the most common; but you can also post a bond of something like the minimum insurance amounts. Yes, if you don't have the money to post a bond, you're more or less forced into insurance or not driving (or driving illegaly), but that's we know you'll uphold the social construct of fixing the damages you cause. You don't need insurance to ride a bicycle, because it's not as easy to cause damages with a bicycle.

Self insurance is no longer a thing in the UK. I think the administrative work of ensuring you capture increased bonds with inflation was judged unacceptable or something?

So actual insurance is mandatory for people who operate motor vehicles on public roads

The alternative is that cars are prohibited because we've decided not to insure the risk and their owners definitely can't be relied upon to just happen to be able to cover the costs when, inevitably, they are incurred.

I'm OK with "all private motor vehicles are prohibited" but you need to be clear if that's what you want

Socializing the risk in this way is a regressive tax, there are clearly other alternative organizational structures.

To play devil's advocate (and avoid the wrath of a certain lobby): We don't require knife insurance.

To extend your analogy slightly (while recognizing the actual meaning), if you go to an axe throwing venue (range) you dont have to carry insurance, but the range does carry insurance.

If you go into the wilderness where axe throwing is allowed, and you maim or kill someone, you are personally liable to be sued or prosecuted.

If you throw an axe where it is not allowed, you are also personally liable criminally and civilly.

Do you use your knives daily in a fashion that might injure bystanders? If so maybe you should be made to carry mandatory insurance.

There has been discussion about piloting something like that in london

> Insurance isn't a social contract, it's private business foisted upon you

so if you had an accident that caused damage to somebody else, and you didnt have money to pay for said damage, who makes the other party whole?

You can survive quite happily without a car, and thus without car insurance, in the vast majority of the UK. Vehicle ownership is not mandatory either in principle or practice.

FWIW, there is such a thing as public-sector insurance. The required auto insurance in saskatchewan, for instance, is tied to your registration and administered by the same crown corporation, which doesn't have the profit motive that a private insurer has.

"Obey the law" isn't part of the social contract? Hmm.

Law 209348032984: Pay some guy for dubiously priced services that are clearly a government function. If you don't do it you're a statistical thief who refused to pay for something that didn't happen. Seems like the law itself is violating the social contract.

I don't think "buy some car insurance if you're going to drive" is any more unreasonable than "buy a crash helmet if you're going to drive".

But I can see how there would be a range of valid opinions on the matter. Some places do have a single government-owned insurance company: whatever they say you have to pay, you have to pay. No other options.