What's Going Down(town)

Not-So-Free Ride
The trouble with negative externalities
Link (New York Times Magazine)

“Americans drive too much. This isn’t a political or moral argument; it’s an economic one. How so?

Because there are all sorts of costs associated with driving that the actual driver doesn’t pay. Such a condition is known to economists as a negative externality: the behavior of Person A (we’ll call him Arthur) damages the welfare of Person Z (Zelda), but Zelda has no control over Arthur’s actions. If Arthur feels like driving an extra 50 miles today, he doesn’t need to ask Zelda; he just hops in the car and goes. And because Arthur doesn’t pay the true costs of his driving, he drives too much.

What are the negative externalities of driving? To name just three: congestion, carbon emissions and traffic accidents. Every time Arthur gets in a car, it becomes more likely that Zelda — and millions of others — will suffer in each of those areas.”

“Which of these externalities is the most costly to U.S. society? According to current estimates, carbon emissions from driving impose a societal cost of about $20 billion a year. That sounds like an awful lot until you consider congestion: a Texas Transportation Institute study found that wasted fuel and lost productivity due to congestion cost us $78 billion a year. The damage to people and property from auto accidents, meanwhile, is by far the worst. In a 2006 paper, the economists Aaron Edlin and Pinar Karaca-Mandic argued that accidents impose a true unpaid cost of about $220 billion a year. (And that’s even though the accident rate has fallen significantly over the past 10 years, from 2.72 accidents per million miles driven to 1.98 per million; overall miles driven, however, keep rising.) So, with roughly three trillion miles driven each year producing more than $300 billion in externality costs, drivers should probably be taxed at least an extra 10 cents per mile if we want them to pay the full societal cost of their driving.”
[...]
“While economists may argue that gas is poorly priced, that imbalance can’t compare with how poorly insurance is priced. Imagine that Arthur and Zelda live in the same city and occupy the same insurance risk pool but that Arthur drives 30,000 miles a year while Zelda drives just 3,000. Under the current system, Zelda probably pays the same amount for insurance as Arthur.

While some insurance companies do offer a small discount for driving less — usually based on self-reporting, which has an obvious shortcoming — U.S. auto insurance is generally an all-you-can-eat affair. Which means that the 27,000 more miles than Zelda that Arthur drives don’t cost him a penny, even as each mile produces externalities for everyone. It also means that low-mileage drivers like Zelda subsidize high-mileage drivers like Arthur.”
[...]
“The better news is that PAYD (Pay as you drive) insurance is no longer just an academic exercise. G.M.A.C. has begun using OnStar technology to offer mileage discounts, and next month Progressive will roll out a comprehensive PAYD plan called MyRate.”
[...]
“The bigger goal for society — and the wild card in this or any incentive shift — is to create real behavior change. And that is always easier said than done. But if Progressive’s PAYD insurance can induce some of its high-mileage customers to drive less and especially to drive more safely, resulting in smaller claims payouts for Progressive and fewer negative externalities for everyone, then it could truly be a win-win-win situation.”

Would a pay-as-you-drive auto insurance system save you money? Would it make you reconsider your living arrangement and/or car usage?