A question from a loyal reader:

Should car dealers sell cars or price them based on a driver's history of drinking and driving?

Curious Carpooler

Dear Curious,

That's an interesting question. There is little room for should in the marketplace, of course, because should implies a commonly held belief or ethos, and the market exists precisely because people with differing subjective values see gains from swapping things. Yet I wonder if such a car dealer would be rewarded enough by non-drunk customers to make up for the loss of business from drunks. The latter, of course, would appear to go through more cars on average than your typical teetotaler.

Your question, by the way, reminds me of something I've long thought would be a good idea: a law (at the local level -- I may not be a good libertarian, but I am a federalist) that limits the weight of the vehicle one is allowed to drive based on one's age, IQ, and driving record. There is nothing more chilling to a driver than to spy in one's rear view mirror a mouth-breathing teenage boy attempting to control his two-ton suburban on oversized wheels. Under my rules, if he's as stupid as he looks, he's limited to a Daihatsu. One traffic ticket and he's busted down to a Schwinn.

On a related note, I recently had a conversation with a woman whose son is just now able to drive unsupervised. She's not sure what she'll get him to drive, but she assured me that it will be "really big, so he'll be safe." Her worry, you see, is that being young and impetuous, junior may have an accident. So she wants to wrap him in a ton of steel before unleashing him on the same streets my wife and children traverse. I called her an ignorant twit, and said I'd rather she bury her idiot child's remains in a bucket than increase the risk to my family because she hasn't raised him to be a safe driver.

Actually I just nodded and went "hmm," but I think she got my point.