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What is the industry standard threshold of expensive damage where an engineer can decide to kill a person to avoid it? I imagine this comes up often enough ther

What is the industry standard threshold of expensive damage where an engineer can decide to kill a person to avoid it? I imagine this comes up often enough there would be some sort of formal guidance about it. My perhaps naive understanding of civil engineering professional ethics is that this decision is off limits to them. They may design a system to fail in ways that are less harmful to life than others, but not to cause human harm or death when it could otherwise be avoided. In any case, if you do design such a system, the driver may be at proximate fault but it's hard to say it's entirely on them.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Most objects aren't designed to withstand impacts from heavy machinery (e.g. lorries) without endangering anyone and it's not normally considered. Shop windows can cause significant damage to people if a vehicle is driven into them, but it's not really anything to do with the ethics of window designers/manufacturers/installers. If there was a large pointy protrusion that was designed to cause harm, then you would have a stronger point(!) that it was designed to be dangerous. Merely having a height barrier before the very similar height barrier of the tunnel itself is hardly making anything more dangerous and I'd consider it less likely to cause harm to life as emergency responders can get better access to the people involved rather than possibly having to dig them out of a tunnel first. Also, a height barrier is unlikely to cause major physical harm to the driver, so I think you've over-egged your position.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Right but once you've decided to intervene to stop the driver from damaging the bridge, the mechanism of stoppage is your responsibility. The way you stop them may not be, and doesn't have to be, safer than what would happen without intervention. But at the same time you can't go "eh it's cheaper just to kill them."
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    Hitting the height barrier is likely to be less harmful to the driver and other people than hitting the bridge itself, so that seems to be taking due care (and again, killing the driver is extremely unlikely in either scenario). The purpose of a height barrier is to act as a sacrificial component and I would consider that it improves the safety of the structure as well as being cheaper. It's a very common design to see metal or concrete poles (bollards) used to prevent drivers from causing harm to other road users, features or shop fronts. They're safe and effective.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

Most objects aren't designed to withstand impacts from heavy machinery (e.g. lorries) without endangering anyone and it's not normally considered. Shop windows can cause significant damage to people if a vehicle is driven into them, but it's not really anything to do with the ethics of window designers/manufacturers/installers. If there was a large pointy protrusion that was designed to cause harm, then you would have a stronger point(!) that it was designed to be dangerous. Merely having a height barrier before the very similar height barrier of the tunnel itself is hardly making anything more dangerous and I'd consider it less likely to cause harm to life as emergency responders can get better access to the people involved rather than possibly having to dig them out of a tunnel first. Also, a height barrier is unlikely to cause major physical harm to the driver, so I think you've over-egged your position.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
Right but once you've decided to intervene to stop the driver from damaging the bridge, the mechanism of stoppage is your responsibility. The way you stop them may not be, and doesn't have to be, safer than what would happen without intervention. But at the same time you can't go "eh it's cheaper just to kill them."
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Hitting the height barrier is likely to be less harmful to the driver and other people than hitting the bridge itself, so that seems to be taking due care (and again, killing the driver is extremely unlikely in either scenario). The purpose of a height barrier is to act as a sacrificial component and I would consider that it improves the safety of the structure as well as being cheaper. It's a very common design to see metal or concrete poles (bollards) used to prevent drivers from causing harm to other road users, features or shop fronts. They're safe and effective.