Collective Punishment
Collective punishment is banned by international law in times of conflict. Rightfully so, one is responsible for their own actions but certainly not for those of another. War can never be civilized, but it can be made easier for those unfortunate enough to have it find them.
Collective punishment is not legal in Canada. For the same reasons. We would all be against the punishment of an entire city block for the actions of one resident, or the punishment of entire towns for the actions of a few.
But yet, it exists. Not in the violent sense mentioned above, not here and now at least (whether the war in Afghanistan is an incidence of collective punishment itself is a question worth discussing).
Insurance, automotive insurance, is an incidence of collective punishment on the basis of age and sex. The onus, instead of being on the companies themselves to prove that the person is unsafe, is on the driver to prove that they are competent. This would be understandable, with age as an approximation of experience, so long as those older people just beginning to drive are also subject to the same fees. And if sex did not factor into it.
But it does. And so the situation is one of collective punishment against young people in general, with young males punished to a greater extent.
Statistics, is claimed, proves that these groups are more likely to be in an accident and are thus more costly to insure. This may be so, but it is the company which must show that a particular person, not a general person, is a greater risk and thus warrants a greater rate. Sexism is unacceptable under all circumstances. Age discrimination is equally unacceptable but a lack of experience is, in this case, I believe a defensible cause for an increased rate.
Current norms are unacceptable, whether or not one could truly qualify them as a case of collective punishment.
Tags: insurance, public good, Society
Right — and it’s not like implementing this properly would be difficult. Charge everyone the same flat rate you’d expect to be reasonable given their experience, then double it for every moving violation and quadruple for every at-fault accident. Should end up being the same amount of income for the insurance company, and without the collective punishment.
In fact, if anything, the current scheme is more dangerous for everyone — young males, already shafted on the insurance, may feel entitled to young male-like behaviour and feel they have little to lose by driving dangerously.