What Every Sensible Driver Needs: Speeding Insurance

Following on from the latest French craze of trading speeding penalties, the Danes have invented a whole new business designed to take the pressure off drivers who like to go fast (or are just careless): speeding insurance.

Drivers pay 2.5 Danish crowns (46 cents) per day. In return they get annual coverage of up to $1855 for four speeding and four parking tickets. And again, it's a case of drivers uniting against the state:

The idea, [insurance company] Fartklubben founder Poul Winther told Danish daily Politiken, is not to give Danes license to put the pedal to the metal, but rather to protect motorists from over-zealous traffic cops.

"We're a solidarity club where each member is jointly liable for one another," he said. "We believe that photo speed traps and parking companies have become pure money machines."

The government could respond by lowering incentives to use such insurance, i.e. reducing penalties for speeding or getting control of its traffic cops. More likely, they'll go for Option 2: make speeding insurance illegal.