GIVE THE LITTLE CAR A BREAK

To the driver of the battered flivver and the second-hand Dodge the proposal now before a committee of the General Court should be of interest. The plan suggested is to repeal compulsory insurance and substitute for it an act based on a New Hampshire law which provides that, although insurance is unrequired, drivers causing accidents are barred from the road until damages are payed.

To bar careless drivers from the road is the sole purpose of the present law. If we may judge by New Hampshire statistics which show a 20 percent increase in registration with a 22 percent decrease in fatalities, the plan under consideration takes care of the purpose of the existing law. In addition, the repeal of the present regulation will lift a heavy load from the shoulders of the careful small-car driver. At present the safe driver bears an insurance burden saddled upon him by the carelessness of others. Finally, by removing insurance from the realm of law, the state will be saved those bickerings between insurance men and politicians it recently experienced. In the face of so many powerful considerations the present compulsory insurance law requires more than mere legislative inertia to justify its continuance on the statute books.