@TwinTurbo: “I couldn’t put a number on it myself. Sure, you could calculate lost earnings over a lifetime. But what about the things you can’t possibly put a value on? For example, what’s it worth to my son, who would grow up without his father? How do you ascribe a value to THAT?”
I’m no lawyer, but I think the lost earnings would fall under compensatory damages, while the things you can’t put a value on would fall under punitive damages.
Our lives are not worth much individually, we as a society do not care about one single person. Most are in a huge hurry and only care about themselves, and it reflects itself in traffic deaths among other things.
If we wanted to raise the speed limit to 100mph on the highways and it was said 1000 more people a year would die because of it, most people would say go for it, its just some nameless faceless person that will die, it wont be me.
Same thing with alcohol, there is absolutely no reason that anybody must consume alcohol before driving other than the fact over half of adults must have alcohol in certain situations because they cant function without it. The limit should be zero, but we decide that its ok to have alcohol before driving even if people die, because the right to drink then drive is more important than 20k lives a year.
Why stop with just one life? What about all the generations that will never be because someone dies early. It could change the world. There is no end to it once you go down this path.
Punitive is punishment for being reckless. To punish the party involved in addition to compensating for actual loss. Its where juries tend to go nuts, but on companies not individuals because they have more money.
The value of human life is determined differently depending who the courts are dealing with. Looking through recent settlements of deaths due to someone else’s neglect, the courts take the current earning power of the victim and multiply by the number of working years lefts. So, a person 30 years old making 70,000 per year would get at least 30x70,000=$2,100,000 awarded to the widow. There might be other expenses involved such as repatriating the body to the main residence and funeral costs. Actual settlements are often less, however. I doubt if the US military works that way; being a soldier is inherently dangerous and your widow won’t collect anything like a civil cash settlement.
The problem with this is that only a well heeled or well insured company, organization, or person could afford to pay up. My policy has $1,000,000 3rd party liability.
In the case of car insurance, most drivers get a policy that pays enough to not cause hardship to the widow in the short term. Otherwise the policy would be too expensive. Remember, there might be up to 7 people in the vehicle who all would be insured.
During the Bhopal, India disaster with Union carbide, the Indian government wanted the case tried in a USA court, since human life in India was worth only about $1000 at that time. A US settlement would have Union Carbide pay a whole lot more. All the same, it put Union carbide out of business as an independent company.
With respect to traffic deaths, as per the post, we are seeing a continuous drop in fatalities per million miles driven, and since 1954 they have dropped by a factor of 16! Safety gear, better roads, sturdier cars, better lighting all have contributed. Driving skill have remained at the same dismal level.
The type of calculations presented in the post are wishful hogwash; speed limits have very little effect on fatality rates. The temporary drop in the rate with 55 mph were a combination of drivers trying to conserve gas by driving slower and more carefully and avoiding unnecessary trips. The long term trend, as shown, is downward.
Germany still has the world’s highest speed limits and their highway fatality rate is one half that of the US. Better driving skills are mostly responsible and ridgid car inspections as well.
Keeping people safe is desirable, but at some point you’re just protecting people from their own stupidity. (and from that of others) You reach a point of diminishing returns when measures taken to keep everyone safe impacts the freedom and quality of life of others. I despised the “double-nickle” speed limit, and am happy that most highway speed limits are now 70 where I live. It makes sense to mandate lower speed limits through residential areas, dangerous roads, areas with limited visibility, etc. But to do so on broad, straight stretches of highway is just torturous for all but the geriatric crowd. I totally agree that better driver’s-ed would help.
Life is inherently dangerous and unpredictable. Even if you believe things happen for a reason, you have to admit that s#it occasionally happens and things don’t work out as planned. While I would join the line of angry people with torches if the old 55 MPH speed limit was reinstated, I certainly admit that there are people that can’t handle driving even that fast, and I wouldn’t want anarchy on the roads despite how much I loathe speed traps and draconian enforcement of petty traffic laws. It’s a delicate balance of finding rules that accommodate “wild cards” and keep people as safe as reasonably possible without needlessly punishing the rest of us.
–everyone knows that 67% of statistics are just made up anyway…
The worth that one puts on life is often directly proportional to the resources available to maintain it. For example. The Cheney family can use extraordinary means to maintain his life while the uninsured and those without private means to self insure, get minimal emergency room care. Now that an attempt has been made to force legislators to enroll in the same plan as everyone (Obamacare), many are really PO’d to think that their life will be worth no more in available insurance funds to maintain, then a minority person. And somehow, they have managed to gleen the support of those it would help the most. They do this through Bigotry, which is a sure sign of the differnce in value we place on life. There are desperately few countries who legitimize the idea that everyone’s life has equal value. They aren’t in the news for either killing large numbers of others they hold less value for ( the US through self neglect and wars) and those like the non democratic within the mid East turmoil now.
Capitalism has a way of both enhancing the value of life in some businesses ( we need living customers) but in some instances, minimizing it for profit. Drug companies are more incline to develope drugs that treat diseases for profit then cure them. They place a higher value on the profit an individual can generate for them while sick then providing a cure to eliminate the need for the drug that company provides. That’s why they place a higher value on the sick but living people. Why would they promote the overuse of antiinflamatories when inflamation is part of the healing process. That’s why with few exceptions, ( none that I can think of) cures for disease are funded and supported more by govt investment and private donations who actually place a higher value on life, then by the healthcare industry itself which needs to keep their hospital beds full and regular appointments for profit.
As ridiculous as it seems, my experience in the military has taught me that in practice, though the military’s job is to kill people and break things, they put higher value on life over all in their daily operational conduct with respect to their bretheren then pollution generating industries throughout the world.
This is a good demonstration of how Ford decided whether doing a recall on the Pinto was worth it. It’s another way we as a society determine how much lives are worth.
To be blunt, you can indeed put a value on human life and health plans do it all the time. $50,000 per year of quality life. (Quality is arguable). 40 years of working means the average life is worth $2M. If you earn more, your life is worth more. $1.5M for the average is a bit low. You can debate whether cars are worth the 40,000 lives lost per year but it is a fools argument. They are here and they will stay until a better mode or transport is created.
If we’re going to be blunt and put a dollar value on a life and examine the costs associated with driving cars, perhaps we should take safety inspections out of the picture. Eliminate them. Instead use the money wasted on yearly inspections and repairs and the administration of such and use some of the savings towards things that have some measurable benefit to the motoring public, such as improved roadways, public driver education, etc.
Why do I feel this way about safety inspections? Utah has state mandated safety inspections. In 2009 the rate of highway deaths there was .9 per 100,000,000 miles traveled. Oregon has no safety inspections. In 2009 the rate of highway deaths was 1.1 per 100,000,000 miles traveled. In this case, safety inspections resulted in the saving of .2 lives per hundred million miles traveled. Wow.
How much taxpayer money was spent to administer the Utah safety inspection program in 2009? How much money did drivers in Utah have to spend in 2009 to license their cars? Safety inspections are a millions of dollars a year business in the states that have them. And in this case, the public only needs to drive 500,000,000 miles to recoup the cost of one life.
I will admit that in certain parts of the country rust may be a safety issue, but only if we assume the general public is either stupid or negligent and will drive a car until it falls out from under them.
Our State is considering going from 65 to 70. I remember doing long drives yied to 55, did not miss it a bit when it went back up. Tidbit.
The top five leading causes of injury-related deaths were:
Suicide
Motor vehicle crashes
Poisoning
Falls
HomicideTo help cure boredom, our state has raised the speed limit to 75 on some stretches. Where speeding is the second leading cause of highway deaths, just behind driving unbuckled, it seems lives take a back seat to going nowhere fast. Hey, at least those driving 75 in a 65 will no longer be speeding, maybe the deaths will go down…dah. i don’t think so. Crashes at 60 miles per hour are twice as severe as those at 40. At higher speeds, just the rapid deceleration ruptures the human body to the extent that regardless of safety devices, they often become unsurvivalble. Speed limits are racing to a point where there is no sure thing as a safe car, just a fast car.
How much taxpayer money was spent to administer the Utah safety inspection program in 2009?
Most states like NH and NY…state inspections are actually a money making business for the state. There’s very little administrative costs since the inspections are done by private companies. And they have to pay a fee for the inspection license. Then they have to pay the state for the stickers…and then pay for the computer that does emission testing. So we eliminate the safety inspection then the state will get LESS money for improving the roads.
@dagosa, You are right, A great man doesn’t repeat himself but he usually doesn’t have to contend with jinky comment management software! 
Multiple posts were in error, sorry!
There are certainly administrative costs for the state in administering a safety program. Oversight, inspections of approved facilities, technician certification programs, periodic review and amendment of the program, customer support, etc. I don’t know how much of that is paid for by the program itself or out of the state fund, but it’s money that is being spent, ultimately by the resident taxpayers, and to very little benefit. Take a fraction of that money spent and put it towards road improvement to alleviate traffic. That’s what we need.
As for the state safety inspection programs that I’m familiar with, the cost of the inspection and the cost of the sticker is regulated by the state in the interest of fairness and consistency. However, the prices are not nearly competetive from a business standpoint. Only being able to charge $30 for an inspection that can take up to half an hour amounts to 2/3 of a normal labor rate with no parts sales involved. The markup on the sticker is nowhere near the normal 40%. Add to that the cost to the shop for required equipment and training, and it’s nothing but a loss-leader akin to the $19.95 oil change. And right or wrong, loss-leaders are going to result in the upsell of services. Too many see this as a gravy train to sell brakes, belts, wiper blades.
Mom’s minivan has a seeping rack and pinion, dad has to top-off the fluid maybe once a month. That’s a fail. Dad’s explorer has an emergency brake that will hold on a downhill 6% grade but not an uphill grade. That’s a fail. The passenger wiper blade on grandma’s car is torn and leaves streaks. That’s a fail. Is the world a safer place because we keep these 3 cars off the road?
I’m a state authorized emissions specialist, and I have no problem saying that the emission program in my state is a joke, and only makes money for the third-party company that runs the test-only stations.
For the record, I’m in favor of emissions testing because there is a real, measurable benefit. Safety inspections, not so much.
There are certainly administrative costs for the state in administering a safety program.
I didn’t say there were non…just said that it was minimal. And those costs are more then covered by the fees they charge the service stations.
I’m not advocating state inspections. I’m just saying that here in NH and NY…you remove the testing…then you remove a good chunk of revenue the state gets…which is kinda of the opposite of what you want. Now you’ll have to raise another tax somehow to cover this lost revenue. In NH…those funds are earmarked for highway funds. And it’s MILLIONS of dollars every year we would all of a sudden have to find another source of revenue for.
Around here, a few shops I know of maximize their return by “pencil-whipping” the inspection if they know you or your family. Most of my neighbors, and their families, have been living in the Allegheny river valley since “back when the mob ran everything” in the 70’s.
I like a thorough inspection as a $40 “safety diagnostic.” Drop it off, get a list of discrepances, bring it back in for thr retest after fixing. I’ll bet if I tried to pay labor rates for the “look-see,” it would amount to far more.
“I didn’t say there were non…just said that it was minimal. And those costs are more then covered by the fees they charge the service stations.”
I guess that would vary from state to state. Here in Washington, the emissions program isn’t profitable or even revenue-neutral. But at least we have the benefit of the program reducing air pollution. I know that lately there has been talk afoot in Utah about eliminating the safety inspections, one of the state legislators has demonstrated cost savings to the state of a substantial amount. I don’t remember the specific amounts, but any savings is preferable to spending money.
If safety inspections are a source of revenue for the state, then it’s nothing but a cash cow dressed up in the guise of “safety.” Of course safety is an easy sell. Adding a few cents to the gas tax to replace lost cash flow from eliminating the “safety” inspection, not so easy. But at least it would be honest and probably more efficient. The mechanisms to collect gas tax are already in place, just increase it a few cents.
Of course, like I said, I don’t know what it’s like to live where rust is a safety problem.
I’m going off track and am gonna editorialize. In Minnesota when they had inspections, it was a cash cow not for the state but for the private contractor inspection stations. It took the wrestler governor to get rid of them for good, I hope. Senseless in my view.
Now what I have noticed over the years is that governments are like high school teenagers. They want to have the latest trend in rules and laws. Doesn’t matter if its state, city, county, or even federal. They go to a conference and someone talks about what they are doing in New Jersey, Chicago, or France, etc. and everyone comes back hyped up to do the same thing. Then comes the free bikes, soft drink rules, inspections, building codes, and so on. Just as an example, in our little city, the new Administrator wants to eliminate street parking in the winter, just like the town to the north. Doesn’t matter that its stupid and no reason for it but its the latest fad. The mayor at least agrees with me so its going nowhere this year, but its a constant battle against silly little programs and rules. Now lets talk about historic preservation authorities-no lets not.