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Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emo

by acyou 3y ago

Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emotional response and by a statistical argument. Of course if we adopt the safety measures then things will be safer. "It's only $XXX. Doesn't that seem like a small amount?" "It's lives we're talking about. Why does money matter?" That's an emotional, illogical argument. Now multiply that amount by all of the areas where safety could be better, and all of a sudden, we start to see why things are the way that they are. $127 for a heavier rear guard and side guard. What about the change in operating costs from the increased weight and aerodynamic losses? We could limit all drivers to 30 mph everywhere too. Save lives and gas. Think of the children!

sofixa 3y ago
Am I understanding correctly that your argument is basically "fuck human lives if there's any barrier to making anything even a tad safer that will save some of them"? Where does your logic stop? What about seat belts, how much do they cost to add to vehicles?? Or airbags? Or any of the other safety features that have already been added? Or to go out of cars, infrastructure design - do you know how much more it costs to make sure that bridge/building won't fall apart? Or how much it costs to have multiple exit points from venues with hundreds of people? Safety regulations are written in blood, lots of it.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  Raising shipping costs increases food costs — doubling shipping causes 0.7% inflation. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring-shipping-costs-raise-prices-around-the-world https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring... There are 13,000,000+ households in the US which face challenges having enough food, at least once during the year. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... When you propose a change that makes food less efficient to ship, you increase the number of people who struggle to feed their families — and make the challenge worse for those who already are struggling. What the person you’re replying to is saying is that you have to balance the benefits (fewer truck crashes) against the costs (more hungry people) — and that such a choice isn’t nearly as simple as shallow histrionics, about how we must spend money to save lives! I think your shallow false dichotomy, rather than engaging with the fact that economics also costs lives and causes human suffering, is exactly the problem.
DougBTX 3y ago
At least the argument for road safety has moved on from “we can’t make roads safe” to “we don’t want to spend our money making roads safe”.
Noumenon72 3y ago
A statistical life is worth $1-10 million, and this policy costs $127 * 4 million trucks (not counting fuel), so $1.25 million per life the first year and less after that. So it may be a logical argument couched in emotional terms. Perhaps the trucking companies' position is a negotiating tactic too. I don't see why they should have to pay the entire cost of a solution that benefits society more than themselves; that's what taxes are for.
- seizethecheese 3y ago
  Do you really believe that it will cost $125, including installation? It’s probably a large multiple of that. Add in the aerodynamics, and it might not pass the cost/benefit analysis.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    It should be easy to find out. The side and rear bars have been mandatory in Europe for decades, and are available as an option where European vehicles are sold abroad.
- midasuni 3y ago
  Why shouldn’t they pay for the externalities they cause?
rgmerk 3y ago
We make cost-benefit tradeoffs on regulation all the time. The EPA uses a value of 7.2 million dollars (2006 dollars) for a life saved [1]: So if adding guards to trucks would save, say, 50% of the lives lost in underride crashes, that would give you a benefit of 200 * 7.2 million * (inflation adjustment). You'd also want to add in the benefits of reduced non-fatal injuries. But for the purposes of argument, let's imagine the benefits of imposing this regulation are roughly 1 billion dollars a year. All the costs you're talking about are measurable. It's not that hard to then figure out the costs of imposing the regulation and see whether the benefits outweigh the costs. And this is one of the simpler cases where there aren't complicating factors like privacy or liberty at stake. You're not requiring truck drivers or trucking companies to change their behaviour. All you're asking them to do is fit a couple of extra pieces of steel to their trailers. [1] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation#whatisvsl https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...
lstamour 3y ago
The above is "an emotional, illogical argument". The logical argument is that a burden paid by all is sometimes necessary when there are significant risks. This article goes to many lengths to visualize the risks in examples with and without guards. Admittedly, it doesn't have many counter-examples, nor examples from vehicles other than sedans and older cars. And it cites costs from the 1980s rather than today's costs. But when sedans on the road outnumber trucks, the risk starts to seem equivalent to a flight safety issue where we've known for years that the planes caused fatal injuries but we never addressed it. If there's a blindness in this article, it's not so much the trucking industry response as it is the question of whether or not this has been implemented anywhere else in the world? https://www.reifflawfirm.com/canadian-and-european-truck-underride-standards-have-outpaced-u-s-standards/ https://www.reifflawfirm.com/canadian-and-european-truck-und... suggests that, "in Europe since 1994, front underride guards and side underride guards have been required on large trucks," and that these were strengthened in 2007. That same page suggests front and side (of truck) collisions with a passenger vehicle are more likely than rear collisions, and that existing US and Canadian protections aren't strong enough.
omnicognate 3y ago
Of course it would be completely impossible to do a cost-benefit analysis taking into account fuel costs [1]. Might as well just give up. [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2023-04/ANPRM-Side-Underride-Guards-2023-04-18-web-version.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2023-04/ANPRM-Si...

by acyou 3y ago

sofixa 3y ago

Am I understanding correctly that your argument is basically "fuck human lives if there's any barrier to making anything even a tad safer that will save some of them"? Where does your logic stop? What about seat belts, how much do they cost to add to vehicles?? Or airbags? Or any of the other safety features that have already been added? Or to go out of cars, infrastructure design - do you know how much more it costs to make sure that bridge/building won't fall apart? Or how much it costs to have multiple exit points from venues with hundreds of people? Safety regulations are written in blood, lots of it.

zmgsabst 3y ago
Raising shipping costs increases food costs — doubling shipping causes 0.7% inflation. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring-shipping-costs-raise-prices-around-the-world https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring... There are 13,000,000+ households in the US which face challenges having enough food, at least once during the year. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... When you propose a change that makes food less efficient to ship, you increase the number of people who struggle to feed their families — and make the challenge worse for those who already are struggling. What the person you’re replying to is saying is that you have to balance the benefits (fewer truck crashes) against the costs (more hungry people) — and that such a choice isn’t nearly as simple as shallow histrionics, about how we must spend money to save lives! I think your shallow false dichotomy, rather than engaging with the fact that economics also costs lives and causes human suffering, is exactly the problem.

DougBTX 3y ago

At least the argument for road safety has moved on from “we can’t make roads safe” to “we don’t want to spend our money making roads safe”.

Noumenon72 3y ago

A statistical life is worth $1-10 million, and this policy costs $127 * 4 million trucks (not counting fuel), so $1.25 million per life the first year and less after that. So it may be a logical argument couched in emotional terms. Perhaps the trucking companies' position is a negotiating tactic too. I don't see why they should have to pay the entire cost of a solution that benefits society more than themselves; that's what taxes are for.

seizethecheese 3y ago
Do you really believe that it will cost $125, including installation? It’s probably a large multiple of that. Add in the aerodynamics, and it might not pass the cost/benefit analysis.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  It should be easy to find out. The side and rear bars have been mandatory in Europe for decades, and are available as an option where European vehicles are sold abroad.
midasuni 3y ago
Why shouldn’t they pay for the externalities they cause?

rgmerk 3y ago

We make cost-benefit tradeoffs on regulation all the time. The EPA uses a value of 7.2 million dollars (2006 dollars) for a life saved [1]: So if adding guards to trucks would save, say, 50% of the lives lost in underride crashes, that would give you a benefit of 200 * 7.2 million * (inflation adjustment). You'd also want to add in the benefits of reduced non-fatal injuries. But for the purposes of argument, let's imagine the benefits of imposing this regulation are roughly 1 billion dollars a year. All the costs you're talking about are measurable. It's not that hard to then figure out the costs of imposing the regulation and see whether the benefits outweigh the costs. And this is one of the simpler cases where there aren't complicating factors like privacy or liberty at stake. You're not requiring truck drivers or trucking companies to change their behaviour. All you're asking them to do is fit a couple of extra pieces of steel to their trailers. [1] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation#whatisvsl https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...

lstamour 3y ago

The above is "an emotional, illogical argument". The logical argument is that a burden paid by all is sometimes necessary when there are significant risks. This article goes to many lengths to visualize the risks in examples with and without guards. Admittedly, it doesn't have many counter-examples, nor examples from vehicles other than sedans and older cars. And it cites costs from the 1980s rather than today's costs. But when sedans on the road outnumber trucks, the risk starts to seem equivalent to a flight safety issue where we've known for years that the planes caused fatal injuries but we never addressed it. If there's a blindness in this article, it's not so much the trucking industry response as it is the question of whether or not this has been implemented anywhere else in the world? https://www.reifflawfirm.com/canadian-and-european-truck-underride-standards-have-outpaced-u-s-standards/ https://www.reifflawfirm.com/canadian-and-european-truck-und... suggests that, "in Europe since 1994, front underride guards and side underride guards have been required on large trucks," and that these were strengthened in 2007. That same page suggests front and side (of truck) collisions with a passenger vehicle are more likely than rear collisions, and that existing US and Canadian protections aren't strong enough.

omnicognate 3y ago

Of course it would be completely impossible to do a cost-benefit analysis taking into account fuel costs [1]. Might as well just give up. [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2023-04/ANPRM-Side-Underride-Guards-2023-04-18-web-version.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2023-04/ANPRM-Si...