4 ms·
> Or, more importantly... can you provide a reason why this hypothetical, extremely unusual edge case should take precedence over the 12,000 speeding deaths per
by AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Or, more importantly... can you provide a reason why this hypothetical, extremely unusual edge case should take precedence over the 12,000 speeding deaths per year in our calculation?
That one's easy. Because the 12,000 "speeding deaths" are caused by 300+ million people, so the probability that one is caused by any given person is extremely low. And even 12,000 is an overestimate because those statistics count every fatality where speeding was occurring, but some large fraction of those fatalities would have occurred regardless. And this measure would prevent only a small fraction of that smaller number of actual speeding fatalities.
Meanwhile more than 3 million people die every year of something else, so it doesn't take a large percentage of those being impacted to add up to a larger number.
> For example, I'm willing to wager more people get hurt speeding TO the hospital while their wife is in labor than preventing any sort of injury due to out of hospital birth.
That's because child birth outside of a hospital isn't actually that dangerous, not because some large fraction of people die in car crashes on the way to the hospital. But there are a lot of things that are more dangerous than child birth and are very likely to be fatal if you don't receive prompt medical attention.
> Speed cameras reduce crashes and fatalities, and car breathalyzers reduce the incidences of drunk driving.
Speed cameras don't actually stop you from speeding. If you had to get to the hospital then you can make your case to the judge after the fact instead of having a dead kid.
Car breathalyzers "reduce the incidences of drunk driving" by causing the same problem. What happens if you've been drinking not expecting to go anywhere before you learn you need to evacuate immediately because of a wildfire?
> Even still, humans (judges) review these cases individually and decide which offenders' cars to put breathalyzers / speed limiters on.
The issue is there is no judge available on site to take it back off again in an emergency.
- AshleyGrant 2y ago> What happens if you've been drinking not expecting to go anywhere before you learn you need to evacuate immediately because of a wildfire? I have my own concerns about the technology in question, but frankly this is a terrible example. If you have already proven to make such terrible decisions that you have been court-ordered to have a breathalyzer installed in your car and then you choose to get drunk as a wildfire approaches or at least is highly likely... Well, then you make terrible decisions and now you sleep in the bed you made. Maybe forever.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoWildfires move fast and "a wildfire is likely" is a condition that can persist for months on end in some places. There are also people who are addicted to alcohol. "People with that medical condition should literally die in a fire" is not a great take.
- 0_____0 2y agoYou are really reaching here. We're talking about speed limiters on cars, not accidentally murdering alcoholics who would be able to escape from a wildfire by speeding except that they can't drunk drive because their car has a breathalyzer on it.
- andrewflnr 2y agoI would instead say that people who cannot legally drive should avoid living in places where driving is likely to be essential to their survival. But also I have nothing but contempt for drunk drivers. If you're addicted to alcohol, there's a simple solution: don't drive, at least not at the same time you're drinking. Maybe plan a little. You have to spend a lot of time placing your petty convenience over the lives of others before you get your license taken away.
- 542354234235 2y agoPeople with that medical condition should make alternative plans. If you are an alcoholic, so much so that you have driven drunk so many times that you were caught and convicted multiple times and required to have an interlock device installed, then you need account for that. There are plenty of people who don’t own a car at all, so lets not pretend that we are talking about taking away someone’s pacemaker.
- UncleMeat 2y ago> What happens if you've been drinking not expecting to go anywhere before you learn you need to evacuate immediately because of a wildfire? A drunk person on the road while a lot of people are panicked and trying to get out of town as quickly as possible sounds like a terrible idea. The winning strategy here is you get help from somebody sober who is able to help you escape. And this is a remarkably rare situation in comparison to harm caused by drunk drivers.