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I get so tickled when I hear comments like, "Wow! Did you see that car run that stop sign?" or "That car didn't even slow down in that school zone!".

Duh, the car didn't make those decisions, the driver did.

Cars are machines. They do what people tell them to do. The go, they stop, they speed, the stay on the road, they go off the road; granted, there are other factors that influence what happens on the road, but driver error is the number one cause of accidents on our hi-ways.

So, why do we insure the car instead of the driver?

Well, we do that to make sure that the finance company gets its money should anything happen to the vehicle they have a lien on. That is the number one reason that we insure cars and not drivers. It's economics.

Realistically, what we should do is have a system whereby drivers are covered with liability insurance and vehicles are covered with the comprehensive and collision insurance. Two separate policies.

The liability insurance should be tied in with the driver's license. When a person goes to renew his license he would renew his liability insurance. No liability insurance, no license - simple.

If one allows one's liability insurance to expire, then one's driver's license expires at the same time. Of course, this means that the entity issuing the driver's license will have to work closely with the insurance company, but that could actually be a good thing.

Traditional insurance would of course be utilized for the vehicle itself and would include listings the lien holder, etc.

It only makes sense that we insure the driver for liability coverage. After all, the last time that I checked no one had sued as 1969 Buick for damages caused in an automobile accident.

Learn more about this author, James Dreyer.
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