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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27459 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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On the back of prior discussions about forced 'voluntary' reporting of sleep apnea diagnoses in the State of Maryland in order to qualify for a drivers license, I'd like to draw attention to something similar happening with autism diagnoses in Queensland, Australia. Last year there was an update to the Assessing Fitness to Drive standards to list autism as a medical condition deemed to have an impact on driving.

“As a result, psychologists say people are now cancelling their autism assessment appointments because they fear the legal and financial consequences of not disclosing their condition — while others argue the new standards are "discriminatory" and unfairly target people with autism on the basis of their diagnosis, not their driving ability. “

...

“While the 2022 Assessing Fitness to Drive (AFTD) standards apply across the country, a Queensland law called Jet's law, introduced in 2008, requires drivers to disclose any medical condition that is likely to affect their ability to drive safely — and in some cases obtain a medical certificate to prove they are fit to drive.”

...

“According to the state's Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR), autism was added to the list of reportable health conditions in 2012. Drivers who fail to obtain the medical clearance face a maximum A$9,288 fine and possible loss of licence.”


There's a fair bit more in the article that goes on about a few individual cases, but the gist of it seems to be that in the state of Queensland you need to provide medical clearance to drive from your doctor to the TMR (DMV) if you wish to apply/maintain your license once you are dignosed with autism. Most other Australian states seem to have a more reasonable 'you are legally required to report any ongoing condition that effects your ability to drive' standard.

In Queensland it seems like the above stated “Jet's Law” came about when someone with epilepsy had a fit resulting in a car crash that killed a baby and left his brother in a wheelchair for life. So this law was created To Do Something that then through bureaucratic ignorance has expanded to include other conditions such as autism as the Assessing Fitness to Drive standards were used as a list to determine what these conditions were. And then people have possibly decided to stop being diagnosed rather than deal with the hassle/stigma of reporting.

This is just so banal and unjust that someone diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum would then have to report that straight to the government or risk being fined thousands of dollars and stripped of their ability to drive. Luckily there is some pushback with a guy in the above link apparently filing a case with Queensland's Human Rights Commission, but still, it shouldn't have gotten this far.

Edit: fixed formatting

Why don't we get rid of driver's licences entirely and just rely on car insurance? If you pose a risk to others by not having the skill to drive or by having some medical condition, your insurer could require its own tests. It could ask you to get a licence from a third party private organization. Then the free market would figure out the optimal test of driving ability.

Do you think the type of person who won't/can't get a driver's licence will have insurance? And if insurance companies won't cover you unless you pass a test, then you just drive without insurance.

But surely nobody would be so careless! Well, about that...

About 13% of people on the road are uninsured drivers.

Car insurance is required in nearly every state. However, there are around 29 million uninsured drivers in the U.S. That means about one out of every eight drivers doesn't have car insurance.

The percentage of uninsured motorists varies by state. In Mississippi, 29% of drivers don't have insurance. In New Jersey, only 3% of drivers are uninsured.

Some people don't have insurance because they can't afford it. Some because they don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. And seeing as how you may be more likely to be hit by a bad driver, the combination of "no licence/no insurance, what you gonna do about it?" doesn't fill me with confidence.

It seems like the responsible types get lumbered with the fallout from the careless:

Nearly half of U.S. states require drivers to have uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. With this coverage, the insurance company pays for your car repairs and medical bills if you're hit by a driver who doesn't have insurance.

There are two forms of uninsured motorist coverage:

Uninsured motorist bodily injury (UMBI) Uninsured motorist property damage (UMPD) States typically only require UMBI to cover injuries and medical bills. But some, such as the District of Columbia, also require UMPD coverage to cover car repairs.

To be less serious, it seems we can blame the French for introducing driving licences:

On 14 August 1893, the world’s first driving licences were introduced in Paris.

Driving licences were first envisioned by Louis Lépine who was the top civil servant at the Seine police department in Paris.

I cannot figure out what your point is. Yes, I agree that people driving without insurance is bad. But I don't see how my proposal would have any effect on the number of people driving without insurance.

You're shifting the licensing requirement from the government to the insurers. Now, either insurance companies insure everybody regardless of competence (which means they get landed with responsibility for 'this legally blind drunk driver ploughed into a line of toddlers and you insured him') or they use their own set of tests before insuring drivers.

If they set their own set of tests, it's likely that some people will fail them. So they still end up with no licence. And if people are lying on forms or avoiding going to the doctor because of conditions they think will disqualify them from getting a licence, they'll either lie the same way to the insurance companies, or just not bother with getting insurance. And allegedly 13% of drivers in the USA are already driving uninsured, so driving without a licence isn't that big a step either.

Sure, but at least they'll only have to lie about things that actually affect their driving ability enough for insurance companies to care about them, and the insurance companies will be incentivized to find ways around these problems, such as by making certain medical tests mandatory.

Then if the insurance companies make tests mandatory or no insurance, how is that different from the government making regulations?

I do think there is room in between "ah feck it, if you can turn the key in the ignition you get a licence" and "if you so much as sneeze you're off the road", but I don't think this is a problem that is solvable purely by market forces. The first person injured or killed in an accident by someone 'licensed' by the insurance company, and there will be calls for more stringent standards. More stringent standards = incentive to lie or not report conditions. And that brings us back to where we started, except that now they're lying to the insurance company, not the driving licence department.

it necessarily would increase it if there are more people on the road. but how many people it has an effect on doesn't matter. in your proposed world, if X% of drivers don't have insurance, that's X% of drivers that have never been tested.

look, driver's tests may be incredibly easy to pass, but it is a working high-pass filter. if someone (not on the basis of discrimination like what the Aussies want to do) can't get a driver's license because they've failed a driver's test, what makes you think they're going to get insurance for driving if they can't pass that exam?

and what's even worse now is that you have people who have been previously filtered out of driving altogether are now both on the road and uninsured.

that sounds like a recipe for disaster.

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