THE grim statistics of highway travel in the world's most motorized society add up to an irresistible sales pitch for auto insurance. Cars have killed more Americans since 1900 than the death toll of all U.S. wars since 1775. Roughly 24 million cars crashed in 1966 alone, injuring 4,000,000 people, disabling 1,900,000 and killing 53,000.
The economic loss caused by this carnage is well over $12 billion a year, and there is no question that the U.S. desperately needs a highly effective auto-insurance system that would compensate traffic victims rapidly, fairly and at reasonable...