I look at it more simply. Society spends X dollars per year to save Y lives per year, so the cost to society is X/Y dollars/year. However, the real savings in lives won’t be realized for 10 years or so until all the vehicles have the cameras.
While I agree with the mushy sentiments of the value of mother, I can think of several folks that have/had a negative net worth. So if one of these were among the 58 saved, that would raise the cost. Think of the savings to society if Adolf, Osama, or . . . would have been backed over at an early age. Could removing mirrors entirely have a positive effect on society? Like the twilight zone, one never knows what impact changing one little factor will have on the future. Lets not be so foolish though to think that all 58 of those saved per year will all be productive members of society.
Don’t take this wrong, I like the cameras and would/have paid for them myself with no regulations, but if you are going to analyze the positive side, you need to analyze the negative side too. Truly there are evil people that the world would have been better off without.
Geeze, did I really write that? Guess its been a bad day. I’m not condoning backing over kids even if it means Adolf and Osama live.
yeah , a bad day, my comment was rather morose too. i watch the news and can t help but think a new dark age is around the corner
High wage earners are more valuable......like David Ortiz and Madonna more valuable then Jonah Salk ? I don't think that way.Dagosa, if you doubt that assertion, just get on the wrong end of a "wrongful death" lawsuit: I guarantee expected lifetime earnings will make a HUGE difference on how much $$$ needed to be "made whole." You might not like it, (and I *did* say it made me squeamish, right?) but that's the economic system you were born into. If you don't like it, work to change it.
the value of every human life is infinite and immeasurable.How would coal get mined, skyscrapers get erected, roads get laid with that sort of thinking? All those activities cost lives; an actuary probably could predict the number to +/- 10% accuracy. The very large benefit to society from doing any one of these activities are *finite*...vs. *infinite* life value, I guess nothing ever gets done?
It's the corporate for profits and the bought politician that devalues human life, hopefully not the ones you love who want your inheritance.If I were on death's door, and had the power to benefit the next generation with $20,000,000, I hope I'd have the fortitude to go "no heroic measures," as opposed to squandering it chasing a few years of what likely would be very low-quality life, barely mobile and hooked up to machines. Let me walk into the woods and not return like the Iroquois did!
But then, I live in a dream world......;)You said it, not me :-D