A Different Kind of Car License

Posted by Paul J. Amore on 05.26.2009

Do you need government permission to do something no one's done before?

First things first: congratulations and best wishes to Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, whose brain cancer has gone into remission. His plan is to continue recovery, and then return to the Senate to spearhead President Obama's initiative on reforming health care. I'm sure Senator Kennedy's recovery was fully funded by Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs, so he wishes to expand those benefits to every facet of the health care industry.

But seriously folks, quality health care is an important issue. Everywhere you turn, there are not enough doctors, not enough nurses, not enough drugs, not enough funding. Of course, it's not the only important issue. Energy and fuel for the country's massive fleet of automobiles is just as important, wouldn't you say? Paul Pearson thinks so.

Pearson is a guy from Santa Monica with an avocation. He can take a new car, remove the engine, do a lot of fancy stuff, and turn it into an electric car. Not a hybrid, a fully electric car. I'm not sure of the details, maybe it plugs in, maybe it's hydrogen-fueled, maybe it uses Mr. Fusion for more than just the flux capacitor. However it runs, it looks cool, even if kinda tiny.

I don't presume to guess his motive. Maybe it's purely political, and he wants to push us past gasoline. Maybe he hates Detroit car companies and wants to hasten their bankruptcy. I would imagine it's mostly that he's a 21st-century gearhead, who likes to see what he can do and how far he can take a concept.

I bet that if I met him, I would find he had passion for what he does, and that I could detect that passion by talking to him about his work. And if I were in the market for an electric car conversion, I think I could trust Pearson based on this. If I wanted more support for my trust, I think I would look for other customers, or other people in the nascent industry, and find out if he's a good guy or not. I probably wouldn't go and ask the government.

The government doesn't like that. They've charged Pearson with the "crime" (those are scare quotes; I'm not above using them; I am above not telling you that I'm using them) of converting cars without a license.

For good reason, the law can't single out. We can't say, "All right , Paul, we can tell you're good, you don't need a license, but everyone else has to get one." We can either require licenses or not. A single option. Each has a down-side.

If we don't require this fellow to get a license, some other, less passionate electric-car converter might come along and do bad work and cheat customers. He wouldn't last in the business long, but for a few days, or weeks, or months (Damn you, The Rembrandts!), some less-than-careful people would get ripped off.

If we do require licenses, every good auto-converter will be forced to report to the government, and some who can't afford the license fee, or can't be bothered to fill out the paperwork, or who are perfectly qualified to do the work but who can't prove it to the licensing board will be lost to the industry. And you're probably still going to have some fraud in the industry.

Last time, in the Short Takes, I asked, "Is it better to have a complete solution to part of the problem, or a partial solution to all of the problem?" This is what I was talking about. Those who want to license everyone and everything would rather have a program that purports to solve the problem 100%, rather than one that admits it's always going to have problems.

Even if you do belive that every profession should be licensed and regulated, then we should do it and damn any capitalists who say otherwise. Or split up the ideas among states and let the best ideas win. But I don't see why anyone who wants to hang out a shingle shouldn't be allowed to convert cars. Or to treat a man's cancer.