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Comment by Tomte | Hacker News Reader

Uninsured Uber driver causes traffic accident. Pedestrian is severely injured. Uber driver cannot pay for the medical expenses and there is no insurance company involved who could.

Either the pedestrian is ruined for life, or society has to pick up the bill.

That's one of the clearest examples of externality you will ever see.

Our free choice evangelists try to frame the whole issue as "one Uber driver, one satified customer who only exercised a choice, and no one else exist in the world".

It's dishonest, but that's Internet discussions.

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First of all, if that was true it would be a failure of the healthcare system ("society paying the bill" is just insurance with economies of scale). But that's not true. A lot of people are not aware of recent developments with uber. Uber offers commercial comprehensive insurance on all rides. When there is a passenger in the car, there is full commercial insurance.

When there are no pax, many insurance providers DO cover it under personal insurance. Some (like geico) don't, but I would wager that the majority of Uber are insured every second of the day.

You're simply wrong.

Even if the healthcare system eats the cost (as it would in my country), it's not supposed to. That's akin to entering a health insurance contract and then demanding the insurer pays for the theft of your iPhone.

Road traffic is insured by car insurers. The Uber driver doesn't have any, the car insurer therefore doesn't pay, so someone else pays. It doesn't matter if you rationalize it with "oh, that someone else is also some insurer". It is someone not involved at all. Ergo an externality.

So, I'm from Russia. In Russia, there's a great variety of cheap taxis, great mobile apps with reviews, gps location of taxis and stuff like that. Very good infrastructure. All simply because government doesn't regulate that.

I am yet to meet a single person complaining that this is bad. There is no increase in road accidents. The service is great. The drivers are very polite and are always on time. One must wonder, how can you be so blind to an obvious example of free market at work?

No, uber offers commercial insurance for all rides. The driver has insurance...

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