Herald on Third Party Insurance

The Herald editorial:

Surely Transport Minister Steven Joyce is not serious when he suggests the Government is reconsidering the introduction of compulsory third-party vehicle insurance because most people have it. Officials have given him a survey in which only 7.6 per cent of respondents admitted to having no car insurance or were unaware whether they did.

Leaving aside the reliability of the survey, the results say nothing about the need for a law. Third-party insurance covers damage the insurer might cause to another vehicle. It is, or should be, a minimum obligation every road-user owes to all others. The fact that most people recognise this without compulsion is no reason not to make it so.

Yes it is. It means there is no particular problem to be solved, and more to the point compulsion is unlikely to increase the coverage from 92.4% (higher than many countries where it is compulsory) so why would you impose on taxpayers the cost of a law and bureaucracy that won’t actually achieve anything.

On that principle, there would be no reason to legislate against all sorts of offences that the vast majority of people by nature would not commit.

Here the Herald loses it. How is bashing someone up, or other various crimes, comparable to a decision not to have third party vehicle insurance?