Wednesday, November 17, 2010

[cuoqfyeh] Click it or ticket

The state hypothetically passes and enforces a seat belt law, making the libertarians cringe; however, they feel better because the fine for violating the law is $0.

The "actual" fine is reflected in the change in insurance rates suffered by the violator whose public criminal record now contains evidence of this unsafe behavior.  The purpose of the seat belt law is to contribute to the public good of information about the driver (and passengers), and the market will react to it.

Two problems:

In order to react optimally, the market (insurers) needs to know the percentage of violators being caught, i.e., the rate of enforcement. (Bayes's Rule) Such information is not easily available from the police.

Insurance is supposed to reduce risk for the insured, but it seems it isn't, if someone risks a significant increase in premium for a single, simple mistake of forgetting to wear a seatbelt.

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