THE ELDERLY MOTORIST
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
SIR,—Compulsory insurance of motor-cars has produced many surprising results which can hardly have been contemplated when enacted by Parliament. Some of. these have become apparent in the course of legal proceedings. Another has now emerged which seems to give the insurance companies a power which it cannot have been intended that they should have, namely, the power of determining without any appeal what persons are to be permitted to drive a car. A friend of mine who has had his car insured with a company for upwards of twenty years without any serious accident has now been in- formed by the company that they decline to renew his insurance, on the simple ground that he is 76 years of age. As other companies will presumably on application, follow suit, this appears to make it difficult if not impossible for him to drive in the future.
It is questionable whether age of itself should-be any ground of prohibition : but even if it be right to impose some age restriction, it cannot be right that this should be imposed by an insurance company. Surely any such restriction should be created by enactment, and the driving licence, not the insurance of the car, should be the object of the legislature's attention. As things are at present the Government purports to allow a man to drive on taking out a driving licence, and then allows an insurance company to make the licence of no avail.
There appears, however, to be nothing to prevent my elderly friend from driving in the future the car of some younger acquaintance, relying not on any policy of his own, but on one effected by the latter. This seems to involve something in the nature of an absurdity and does not do away with his cause of r King's Bench Walk, Temple, E.C. 4.
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