3 ms·
I have the same reaction as most people to want to jump to "well safety features shouldn't be optional". But in practice such a policy translates into "no one
by marshray 8y ago
I have the same reaction as most people to want to jump to "well safety features shouldn't be optional".
But in practice such a policy translates into "no one is allowed to invest in better safety." Different parties have different threat models, e.g. consider the differences between passenger and cargo aircraft, or over-land vs trans-continental. It makes it difficult to exceed safety standards, which were often just intended to establish a baseline.
Floors become ceilings, as they say.
- anoncake 8y agoThat argument may make sense for costly safety features, but not in this case.
- marshray 8y agoIt will _always_ possible after an major airliner crash to say that one particular thing that would have prevented it would have been worth the cost. But investing in just the specific mitigation needed to prevent the next disaster is not an option that we have. We only get to choose a level of investment in protection against classes of risks based on human judgement of the probabilities involved.
- anoncake 8y agoThe feature in question is a warning light if two sensors disagree. You could implement that with a microcontroller, an LED and two wires. In practice, it might not even require additional hardware at all. We do know in advance that its worth the cost because the cost is absolutely neglible.