No you wouldn't. Car sharing clubs like Zipcar deal with the same issue - they hire out cars on a completely unattended basis. If a customer chooses to pick up one of their cars and drive drunk or lend it to their cousin with a suspended license, the customer is liable.

Good point, don't know why I didn't think of Zipcar when I used a similar service last year.

Looks like the bigger problem might be people suing over accidents where they were distracted and forced to make a split second decision, when they 'reasonably' expected the car to be able to handle the conditions. (Not trying to shift the goal posts, just sharing a separate concern).

How do you do this verification when someone rents a car?

I've rented a car before where the only thing they verified is that I presented a credit card with the same name as the one on my driver's license, which they never asked to see because I had already put in the number online. I guess it's possible they were able to look up my photo from DMV records and were matching my face to it, but I'm guessing not.

Also, more importantly, you have to verify that the user is not at the moment incapable of operating a vehicle, i.e drunk.

I'm not a lawyer but I assume any funny business there would be charged to the person using another person's account, and the person who owns the account. That's how it works with regular cars if you use someone else's ID.

You could use an RFID chip, with an understanding that sharing it bad. Not perfect, but not unlike how drivers pick up a ZipCar now.