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The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) is New Zealand’s no-fault personal injury cover for all New Zealand residents and visitors to New Zealand.
If some one hurts you (or you hurt yourself), you’re entitled to compensation.
Open to immense abuse, of course – I trapped a nerve in my back when I was back on holiday once and the doctor put it down as an “ACC”.
“Cheaper for you that way” he said, even though I had a travel insurance policy that covered it. I think I even got 150 Paracetamols included….
Given that it’s a bloody expensive scheme, the money has to come from somewhere.
It’s deducted from your salary with your tax if you’re an employee, you’re billed directly if you’re self-employed and if you drive a car, part of your registration fee goes into the ACC fund.
Which is fair enough – if you drive a car, you carry a greater risk of injury.
The new ACC Minister, Dr Nick Smith, wants to tweak the model a bit further.
If you’re not driving a vehicle that has a 5-star safety rating (side airbags and electronic stability control being prerequisites i.e a new car), you’ll pay a higher registration fee.
This is a bit like trying to change a spark plug through the exhaust pipe, Nick.
Having higher efficiency airbags will certainly contribute to injury prevention.
Prerequisite: having an accident.
The prime cause of accidents (which result in the injuries that ACC addresses) is still going to be the driver:car:(drink) combination.
Now, insurance companies tend to be pretty good at assessing risk.
So while they’re whacking the 20 year old driver of a (new-ish) tuned-to-within-inches-of-its life Honda Civic for an insurance premium that reflects the (not inconsiderable) risk of his/her wrapping themself around a tree or taking out a pedestrian/cyclist/other driver, why not surcharge the premium for ACC purposes and have the insurance companies pay it directly into the fund?
By all means charge me the 60 year old driver of a 1996 Honda CRV a higher ACC component of the registration fee for the higher risk of injuries by NOT having side airbags, but AT LEAST factor the lower risk of having an accident in the first place into the equation and the resulting tendential irrelevance of having (or not having) side airbags.
Back to the drawing board, Nick…
You Must Be From Away 
>So it's an extra tax on people who own old (and not very old at that) cars. Which is, I suspect, most people. Worse, poor people are very unlikely to have cars new enough to have side airbags and electronic stability control, and are the group least likely to be able to afford the higher registration charge.Well, and it'll affect me, only one of my cars has airbags at all.(some random guy who found your blog, er, probably at least a year ago — keep up the good work etc)