Victoria suffered just under 300 deaths in road crashes in 2010. That’s a tragedy nearly every day, but it’s still a small fraction of the toll exacted by motor vehicles 40 years ago, when the road toll peaked at 1061 in 1970 (at at time when there were fewer people and many fewer cars). I couldn’t find a graph for Victoria but here is one for Australia as a whole, showing the same pattern with a slight lag as other states followed Victoria.
Anyone my age or older will remember that, after decades of accepting steadily increasing death rates as the price of mobility, Victorian governments of both political persuasions finally took the politically courageous step of enforcing higher safety standards – first seat belts and automative design rules, then effective techniques to catch and convict speeders and drink drivers, then helmet laws and more stringent license testing, among many others. Victoria’s interventions were eventually followed by other governments in Australia and elsewhere, but the lags are such that Victoria has gone from having some of the most dangerous roads in the world to having some of the safest. Nevertheless, and not surprisingly, these steps aroused plenty of opposition at the time, and the opponents were able to produce supposed experts to back their arguments.
What might seem more surprising is that even after four decades in which their claims have been refuted beyond any reasonable doubt, the same experts are still pushing the same discredited lines, and still finding a ready audience. With a closer look at the experts and their audience, this fact is perhaps less surprising, but still requires some explanation.
The arguments against road safety interventions are of two kinds, though they often intertwine. The first involve arguments against specific interventions, for example
* Seat belts increase the risk of death because people may be trapped in their cars rather than being “thrown clear”
* Variance in speed of vehicles matters more than average speed so we shouldn’t enforce speed limits
* Speed cameras/breath test machines are unreliable and give lots of false positives
* Restrictive vehicle design rules will raise costs, leading people to buy older/cheaper cars and reducing safety
None of these arguments stand up well to scrutiny, but I don’t propose to discuss them here. I’ll set up a sandpit for people who want to argue about specific cases.
The second is a general argument, purporting to show that any regulatory intervention to increase safety will be ineffective (although it is sometimes applied inconsistently by people who oppose some interventions but not others). The central idea is that any reduction in risk below the level that would arise in the absence of intervention will lead people to take more risks, wiping out (or, in some versions, more than wiping out) the first round benefits.
This kind of argument has been advanced (apparently without much cross-acknowledgement) by economists of whom the most notable is Sam Peltzman, under the name ‘rebound effect’, and by geographers, including John Adams, under the name “risk homeostasis”.[1] Adams in particular likes to cite “Smeed’s Law” a statistical relationship first estimated in 1949, which showed that, as the number of vehicles increased, the number of road deaths increases, but less than proportionally. Victoria fitted the Smeed’s Law pretty well until 1970, after which deaths fell sharply while the number of vehicles continued to rise. Nevertheless, Adams has continued to claim that both Smeed’s Law and risk homeostasis fit the data.
Of course, it’s not unusual to see academics pushing their pet theories long after the evidence has turned against them, and some degree of stubbornness in the face of contrary evidence is desirable – sometimes the disconfirming data is wrong, or is driven by a run of chance events. And, as anyone who has followed such debates will know, it’s always possible to tweak the data until you get the result you want. But you would think by now that the stunning success of Victoria’s interventions would have produced at least some admission that the theory and the data don’t fit too well. Not a bit of it. Adams, Peltzman and others are still behaving as if Victoria’s interventions had produced the increase in fatalities they predicted, and, as I mentioned, still getting plenty of airplay from prominent thinktanks.
The explanation of course is that Adams and Peltzman are libertarians, and the thinktanks that back them are similarly inclined. Peltzman checks just about all the US boxes – professor of economics at Chicago, fellow of AEI, Cato. Adams isn’t such a joiner, but he is clear enough on the political implications of the argument. For example, in explaining persistent belief in the effectiveness of seat belt laws, Adams writes
Why should the government be so assiduously promoting and inflating this myth? It has ready access to the numbers that disprove it. I offer a simple, cynical, explanation: it feeds the larger myth of the efficacy of government.
And, surprise, Adams is a global warming “sceptic”, quoting such eminent authorities as Benny Peiser.
There are obvious reasons why libertarians would like to believe that road safety laws are ineffective and that global warming is a hoax or fraud.[1] It is of course, possible to argue that, regardless of the benefits of seat belts, people should not be forced to wear them, but that argument doesn’t work for speed traps, RBT, and so on, unless you want to try the extreme Coasian view that such matters should be settled by voluntary agreement (Adams gives this view a nod in his paper Risky Business). Issues like road safety and global warming make it clear that our everyday actions such as driving a car impinge on each other in critical ways that can’t be resolved through the spontaneous operation of market mechanisms.
Sometimes, as with road safety, there is little alternative to direct interventions of the kind pioneered by Victoria. In other cases, as with global warming there is a choice between direct regulation (specifying permissible designs for all kinds of electrical equipment for example) and measures like carbon taxes and emissions trading which, while relying on government action in the first place, leave a lot of the hard work to market processes. A sensible libertarianism would seek to identify the latter cases and present arguments for market-oriented mechanisms.
Sadly, while there are individuals with libertarian inclinations who argue in this way, the libertarian movement as a whole has chosen the path of magical thinking, hoping that if they can keep coming up with debating points, problems like global warming will go away. The libertarian think tanks in the US and Australia are uniformly delusionist on climate change, as are the great majority of individual commentators who self-identify as libertarians[3] [4].
I suspect (and hope) there may be quite a few libertarians who aren’t that comfortable with the anti-science wishful thinking displayed on these issues, but prefer not to pick a fight with their fellow libertarians on an issue that may appear peripheral to their own concerns. I would urge any such to think again. Once intellectual standards are debased in this way, the damage cannot be contained. Bad arguments are accepted because they produce comfortable conclusions, or because they are put forward by political allies. This works (in a way) as long as you can assume that all the correct answers are known, having been revealed in some sacred text or another. But they imply (and reveal in the case of climate change) a total incapacity to deal with anything new. It’s not surprising, as I mentioned not long ago, that the free-market right hasn’t come up with any new ideas in decades. Like other movements that began with a radical openness to new ideas, they have become locked into a dogmatic orthodoxy, immune from empirical refutation.
fn1. Also put forward by psychologist Gerard Wilde.
fn2. It would be similarly convenient for socialists to believe that people aren’t motivated by economic incentives (or wouldn’t be if their consciousness was properly raised) – a large part of the disaster of communism was the attempt to act on this belief.
fn3. I should say that I haven’t seen anything specific from Peltzman on climate change. But, if he believes that the thinktanks with which he is prominently associated are badly wrong on a major scientific and policy issue, he ought to say so.
fn4. I am not interested in hearing from libertarians who conform to this stereotype, but I will establish a sandpit for those who feel impelled to restate their allegiance to tribal orthodoxy (with or without hedges and qualifications). On the other hand, if anyone wants to self-identify as a libertarian who accepts mainstream science as represented by, say, the IPCC or all the scientific academies in the world, I will certainly be interested.
John Quiggin 
@Donald Oats
I hadn’t thought of that. Good point. Ok, what about if I am the only person in the car?
I don’t own a mobile phone. Mainly because I hate telephones* and I reckon mobiles might give you brain tumours with overuse I don’t want to see electronic tagging extend too far in society. That will always be a danger to liberty.
*Why I hate phones;
1. People call you when you don’t want to talk to them.
2. The phone ring tone is still annoying even when ignored.
3. 90% of all private phone conversations are fatuous drivel.
@Sam
Or if i am in the front seat
@Sam
You can’t assume your death won’t affect others unless you are an ant. Do you have kids, or parents? At the very least, people will have to clean up the mess. I can reliably inform you that even professionals working in the area find this traumatic.
Moreover, for every person killed in a road accident there are at least an equivalent number who suffer serious persistent injuries, ranging from brain injuries or lost of use of limbs down to lesser mobility and health problems. These injuries will require other people’s support and/or restrict the accident victim’s ability to support others. They also have wider generalised economic consequences.
It’s not just about you, and it’s not just about your personal death.
@Jim Birch
What do you think of my right to fly a hanglider, ride a motorbike, fight in a boxing match, go camping in an area where there might be snakes?
I’m sorry Jim, but I can’t agree, and I won’t be moved on this point. What you say is morally illegitimate. It is just about me, it is just about my personal death. I am not the property of the state, or of my family.
In a decent liberal society I should not be legally forced to alter my behaviour in response to someone’s hurt feelings. I personally think baseball caps look stupid. I don’t like chewing gum. I am offended by the irrationality of anyone who believes in the supernatural.
I can express my feelings on these issues to anyone I like, but I can’t pass laws against them. To do otherwise is objectionably totalitarian. If my possible death upsets you, then I thank you as one citizen to another for your concern. If you use use hired thugs in the form of the police to tell me how to run my life, you are oppressing me.
I have written a long piece about this about this before in this thread, but since I logged in to another computer while doing it, the comment is still awaiting moderation.
John, would you mind if i reposted it from this active account?
“None of us here or at Catallaxy or Deltoid have the science or the data to judge whether the AGW theories are right or wrong. So we are arguing about which scientists to believe.”
So Ken n endorses the idea that the science isn’t settled. If Ken n is really as convinced of AGW as he claims he wouldn’t try to turn the argument into a debate over meta-information. The argument can only be over the validity of the research and the conclusions drawn from the observations made from that research. The fact is there aren’t any scientists who have carried out research that undermines the current thinking on AGW. Arguing about “which scientists to believe” is a typical denialist gambit (whcih Ken n may have inadvertently deployed)
“I am not the property of the state, or of my family.”
The hyperbole switch was just thrown as Gerard Henderson would say.
@Sam
On the contrary, in a decent society people continually modify their behaviour in response to other people’s feelings. Where the urge to social cooperation doesn’t work, sanctions may be used. This is a completely normal function of all societies and in fact part of your biological heritage as an ape (or even mammal) because it allows groups to survive, progress and sometimes even flourish. It’s not going to go away because a bunch of people (typically, young males, as biology predicts) have decided that they should be allowed to do what they like, and have invented a suitable mythology.
In practice, things like your “right” to ride a motorbike or pitch your tent in snakey hollows come down to complex trade-offs between things like individual “rights”, the costs and benefits of particular behaviours, costs of enforcement, cultural mores, history, etc. You won’t get a completely rational result or general 100% agreement; people are different but it’s a working solution.
(If you want to know why feelings are not trivial epiphenomena but are a fundamental component of your biology that won’t be wished away by simplistic ideological claims I’d suggest “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” by Sapolsky as a good place to start.)
@Jim Birch
Given the work on Helicobacter pylori, the title is unfortunate, at least in terms of its links with the role of culture in stress.
@Fran Barlow
It’s basically a fun title. Sapolsky has a great sense of humour – made me laugh out loud a few times.
More seriously there’s nothing like a one to one relationship between H. Pylori and stomach ulcers, half of us have the bug. Stress is likely a factor because it whacks the immune system, as is a protein rich diet, but H Pylori is required.
Did you hear the Science Show interview with the H. Pylori Nobel guy, Barry Marshall, on it’s peaceful uses? Things get more complex.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/3044922.htm
@Jim Birch
I agree that decent people modify their behaviour from time to time in response to other’s feelings. I disagree that legal sanctions should be used to force people to do this.
I acknowledge that human beings and their brains are biological in nature, and evolutionary in design. I don’t see what that this has to do with the validity or otherwise of the moral axioms I hold.
I don’t think society would stall if seatbelt and helmet laws were removed from the books. I strongly resent the trend in western society towards “benevolent authoritarianism.” It has created a generation of timid and boring apartment-dwelling children and helicopter parents. Worse still, it causes adults to retain childish characteristics indefinitely, and to never discover their full independence. My childhood was spent barefoot, jumping out of trees into rivers, boogie-boarding down flooded creeks, trekking through taipan snake country days away from medical help. I believe it had a very positive effect on my character. I would gladly exchange a few more spinal injuries for a bit more backbone in this society.
“I don’t think society would stall if seatbelt and helmet laws were removed from the books. I strongly resent the trend in western society towards…”
Until the government stops paying huge amounts for the attempted rehabilitation of people with brain injuries etc. and then paying them pensions because no-one wants to employ people that constantly drool on themselves, I don’t think I’ll find it very surprising that the government wants to try and stop people doing stupid things to themselves. Try going into a neuropsych ward and then see how funny not wearing a seatbelt isn’t.
Only just came across this. Very disappointing that Ken N ran away.
Says something about the Libertarian mindset. Hide from the facts. If, heaven forbid, someone confronts you with one, whinge or run away and hide. Mustn’t let facts get in the way of ideology.
@conrad
Ok Ill bite
Conrad says “Until the government stops paying huge amounts for the attempted rehabilitation of people with brain injuries etc.”
Well then Conrad – what do you suggest be done with such people who are so badly wasting government monies/
Let take to the tip and see if we cn pick up a recycling fee for their body parts shall we?
Would you agree Conrad thats an efficient manner ti dispose of the burden of the brain damaged on the budget??
You fool.
Breaking road rules is not, in my view, always the same as driving dangerously nor is exceeding the speed limit always the same as speeding.
In past times, when the enforcement of road rules was nowhere near as strict and harsh as it is today, many who, from time to time, broke these rules which arbitrarily distinguish between ‘safe’ driving and ‘unsafe’ driving, were still rightly regarded as safe and careful drivers.
Very likely, many such drivers would have found themsleves reqularly deprived of their driving licenses if toay’s harsh driving law enforcement regime had been in force back then.
Individuals who break road rules, even to the point of statistically increasing the risk to themsleves and to others are not all reckless and uncaring.
Much of the breaking of traffic rules is done by people pressed for time by the pressures of life imposed by economic ‘reforms’ of recent decades and our poorly designed cities and road networks which force many millions of commuters every week to endure many hours of gridlock to go to and from work or to other necesary life amenities.
The people who have imposed these economic ‘reforms’ and poor city planning on us, made even worse by population growth, that few existing residents want, are at least as culpable as ordinary road users for the appalling road toll.
“Well then Conrad – what do you suggest be done with such people who are so badly wasting government monies”
I’m not saying the government shouldn’t. The above comment was in relationship to people that complain about all government health regulations (as should be obvious from the referenced comment), but seem to forget that the government picks up the rather expensive pieces in many situations. Perhaps these people could sign a disclaimer so they wouldn’t get find when not wearing seatbelts, but when they get brain damage after going the window of their car etc. they could be left to pay for the stuff entirely by themselves.
oops, an e is missing. That should be fined of course.
@conrad
It might be better, Conrad, if, rather than taking the rather angular approach you have, you merely emphasise the salient point — that the decision not to wear a seat belt or a bicycle helmet, while appearing to be simply a fully internalised risk-trade which a rational person could make, inevitably imposes a contingent liability on others, since culturally, few are comfortable with the idea that treatment on a life-altering injury might be withheld for want of capacity to privately fund it or the opportunity to determine the person’s wishes when they may be unable to give a meaningful answer. Moreover, that cultural usage — that people are to be treated for life-altering injuries regardless of their capacity to fund it — partially relieves the putative helmet-rejecting free rider of some of the downside risk in his or her trade.
In short, the decision to make this risk-trade cannot be a matter for the individual alone, but inevitably involves the whole community as stakeholders through their stake in avoiding the externality and further their claim against the individual for his or her share of the infrastructure underpinning his or her evaluation of risk. That infrastructure is, after all, configured to meet the needs of those who accept the constraints imposed by the Motor Traffic Act but are injured all the same.
Rational communities accept that even with the best of system design, injuries are probably inevitable. Uncertainty is a feature of all human societies, and the protection of civil society and individual autonomy from the encroachments of state and community — something almost all of us see as integral to freedom — necessarily enlarges that uncertainty and risk. Accordingly, precisely because almost everyone sees scope for individual autonomy as an intrinsic good and amongst the purposes of community life and would see excessively swingeing state-based constraints on individual autonomy as paradoxical and thus failing operational feasibility, we collectively accept the burdens of clearing up after good-faith errors as a fair exchange rather than as a collective action problem. Defining that good faith threshhold is what impositions such as helmet and seat belt laws instantiate.
As regards compulsion on things like seat belts, I’d be happy enough in principle to allow opt-out to anyone willing to post a bond sufficient to cover their hospital treatment, lifetime disability benefits and so on in the event of a crash causing serious injury. I’d guess that the number of takers would be too small to allow an insurance pool, and there may well be other practical difficulties, but that reflects the fact that not wearing a seat belt is a really stupid decision.
For all sorts of reasons, I don’t see ex post refusal of treatment as an acceptable or feasible option.
@jquiggin
Still don’t agree with this. First of all, it’s not clear that wearing seatbelts and helmets reduce total healthcare much. I acknowledge that they cause injuries that are sustained to be less severe, but they also prevent deaths, some of which turn into serious injuries that would not otherwise have had to be paid for. In much the same way, the total area of savanah habitat in the world is not under threat, as forests turn into savanah at the same rate that existing savanah turns into desert.
More importantly, it’s just philosophically wrong-headed. A private individual should not have to bargain with society over this. Autonomy over management of one’s own health and personal risks is an inalienable right for everyone, not just those rich enough to buy their way to freedom. The non-refusable gift of universal healthcare doesn’t obligate an individual to do anything. No gifts do.
Personally, if the law was removed I would still always wear a seatbelt, but not quite always a helmet. There are some bike rides- through parks or quiet streets- that are exceedingly low risk, and getting hold of a helmet on the spur of the moment may be very difficult.
“Still don’t agree with this. First of all, it’s not clear that wearing seatbelts and helmets reduce total healthcare much”
Try going to the doctor for a headache, and then see whether it’s clear, or just think about the real costs.
For example, let’s say you got some frontal lob damage in an accident. First you’d need immediate treatment from a casualty ward. Then you’d need to be stuck in hospital for a few months to recover. Then you’d probably want a year or two of rehabilition (presumably for free). In case your face doesn’t look very pretty, you probably will want some free plastic surgery also. All of these doctors/allied medical health professionals cost oodles.
Now, after your immediate problems have gone, you’d be basically unemployable, so you would need a pension for the rest of your life. You’d also be more likely to end up in jail, because that’s what happens with people with frontal lobe damage, and also more likely to need expensive medical treatment at the end of your life, because that’s just what having serious brain damage does to people also. Now let’s say there are 2000 cases like you a year (that’s conservative — there are vastly more injuries than deaths on the roads, even with safer cars). This means after 30 years, there are about 60,000 people like you wandering around collecting benefits from the government and wanting special services for free. So, any way you want to calculate it, the cost is enormous, and this is without even trying to include social costs (i.e., the fact that you got divorced and led a miserable life), so of course the government doesn’t want you to do this.
I acknowledge the government doesn’t want me to do this. The point is I don’t live my life for the benefit of the government.
Did you properly read my first paragraph and disagree? Or did you you only read the first part of it and ignore the rest? It’s fine if it’s the former, it’s just that your comment did not acknowledge the particular argument I made.
Also, I doubt that relaxing these two laws would lead to 2000 more deaths. As John said, few would take advantage of a relaxation of these laws, so few would get hurt. Not wearing seatbelts is a really stupid thing to do.
Also, I doubt that relaxing these two laws would lead to 2000 more serious injuries. As John said, few would take advantage of a relaxation of these laws, so few would get hurt. Not wearing seatbelts is a really stupid thing to do.
sorry duplicate comment. I had to change death to injury
As I said upthread, Conrad, my friend who went for a lunchtime bike ride and collided with a car coming out of a driveway right across his path sustained neck injuries as a result of wearing a helmet and is now a full quadraplegic costing half a million dollars a year for the rest of his life for his care. That was because of the way that these light helmets grip the surface in a glancing interception.
It cuts both ways. However in a no fault accident system as NZ has, accident care is guaranteed regardless of the nature of the accident.
@Sam
Universal healthcare is not a gift – it is paid for by taxes/levy and some charges.
Non-seatbelt wearers cost the taxpayer more than seatbelt wearers for the same level of impact.
So a possible solution is the charge non-seat wearers a fee to maintain equity for all.
But I think it is better to educate them and to ignore odd fabricated arguments such as “inalienable rights”.
You give up “inalienable rights” to achieve a better society.
“The point is I don’t live my life for the benefit of the government”
Yes, but the government pays you benefits for life. That was why I suggested that these people sign disclaimers and not take any benefits (or get insurance, which I’d be fine with also).
“Also, I doubt that relaxing these two laws would lead to 2000 more deaths.”
Deaths are not such a problem for the government. Alternatively, long term injuries are. Even small numbers are hugely expensive.
“It cuts both ways”
No it doesn’t, it cuts mainly one way. I’m sure some people not wearing seatbelts are better off than those that do from time to time. It just isn’t very common.
@Chris Warren
All gifts are paid for by someone. UH is a gift that society collectively decides to bestow on every individual. It is a gift that I happen to agree with incidentally. It is right that people have legal obligations to other people’s welfare – without that notion society couldn’t exist. It is wrong for people to owe legal obligations to themselves.
Education is fine, the question is what to do with people who ignore the lesson.
I don’t know why everyone is obsessed with internalising this cost, as opposed to others. The easiest thing to do is just live with a slight inefficiency
It’s a sad indictment on society that “inalienable rights” are treated as odd. You are free to give up your rights to achieve what you think is a better society but you can’t give up mine.
@conrad
Yes I meant injuries. That’s what the duplicate post was about.
@conrad
Also, I’m still not sure you understood the point I was making about injuries. Here’s what I said.
“I acknowledge that they cause injuries that are sustained to be less severe, but they also prevent deaths, some of which turn into serious injuries that would not otherwise have had to be paid for. In much the same way, the total area of savanah habitat in the world is not under threat, as forests turn into savanah at the same rate that existing savanah turns into desert.”
I feel like you’re challenging the claim that seatbelts don’t lessen the damage in any given average accident, a claim I’m not making. Seatbelts cause serious injuries to become only minor juries (a budgetary plus) but they also cause deaths to become serious injuries (a minus). The net effect may be quite small.
Of course, my case doesn’t rest on this. I just thought I’d mention it.
@Sam
Well said Sam. Totally agree.
@Sam
In case anyone is wondering why I agree with Sam on Universal healthcare its because of this one statement he made
“It’s a sad indictment on society that “inalienable rights” are treated as odd. You are free to give up your rights to achieve what you think is a better society but you can’t give up mine.”
Quite.
and this comment
“I don’t know why everyone is obsessed with internalising this cost, as opposed to others. The easiest thing to do is just live with a slight inefficiency”
There is a level of efficiency that is cruel and debilitating and when taken too far results in nothinhg but inefficiency. The pursuit of “efficiency” at the cost of ethical and moral concern over ones fellow human beings and our place as a collective society (for yes, I do rely on the fact that mey neighbour is ethical and wont steal my tomatoes)
… is precisely what is wrong with economics. We have been living with morals and ethics and civil behaviour for far longer than economics coined and misused the term “efficiency” and bogged themselves down in inward, uncaring attempts to place a price on not only our resources, butin so doing badly mispriced human relationships.
Inefficiency the result of the search for ever greater “efficiencies”. A typical human failing Im afraid, is taking ideologies too far and not knowing when the benefit of a particular ideology is fully maximised.
Jim Birch
You can drive your car without wearing a seatbelt or a motorbike or bicycle without a helmet. You can drive at any speed you like in a vehicle that has no brakes, is totally unroadworthy and not built to any safety standards. You can ignore hazards, park where you like, drive at night without lights, and steer the car from the back seat with salad tongs if you want. You can do what you like.
On your own land, your own private property.
Once you step onto community ground, i.e. the road, you assume community responsibilities and give up some of your rights. These responsibilities include doing the best that you can to not kill or injure other members of the community, damaging property and not leaving a mess behind for others to clean up.
If you do not wear your seatbelt and leave your messy body for others to clean up, you or your estate should, at the very least, be levied a fine for your littering.
@Sandra.
I would be happy to pay the littering fine.
@Sam
Unfortunately in a democracy, society can ask you to give up rights.
It can also ensure that where it allows some to escape, (conscientious objection) that they don’t pass consequential costs onto others.
Sam, you seem to be engaged in the same wishful thinking that characterizes libertarians in general. Faced with ample evidence that the costs of your preferred policy are large, you just keep saying “I don’t agree”. That’s not argument, it’s magic.
If you’re going to take an absolutist rights position, why not stick to your principles and say “This may be very socially costly and make us all poorer, but my right not to wear a seat belt (etc) is more important than the economic welfare of the community as a whole”.
Or else, “I want to opt out of both seat belts and public health care, – if I’m in a crash, just leave me to die on the scene”
Is the issue with bike helmets only that they somehow grip the ground surface more than the human skull?
You would expect that if that is the case it would be a design issue that requires amendment, not that the wearing of helmets should be made optional.
Rog,
That is the argument. This is clearly a case of inadequate testing and evaluation by safety officials.
I personally use a construction helmet which is injection moulded and does not have the road grip problem.
I support optional use of safety helmets for casual riding. But for speed riding helmets are essential. However th design issue must be addressed. Beyond that I have argued fruitlessly for years that it is pointless forcing people to wear safety helmets but ignore the need for cylces to have rear vision mirrors. For cylists travelling on roadways all of the danger comes in a steady procession from behind.
I know that in recreational horse riding eg dressage helmets are a contentious issue. Not because of any technical reason but because they just don’t look nice. Especially grand prix dressage where the traditional garb includes a top hat, some trainers say that the appearance of a rider in a helmet indicates that a horse is difficult or presents a risk and that the rider is not in full control.
@jquiggin
It was clear when I was taking an absolutist rights position, and when I was cautiously disputing that the costs were large. I was also clear about acknowledging that the costs are positive. I am sticking to my libertarian principles; that shouldn’t stop me from also making utilitarian counter-arguments, if no one has said them before.
I note that no one has responded to my “conservation of global savanah” argument for serious road injuries. I thought it was an interesting idea, and so I mentioned it. I don’t defend it to the death.
I’ve only said “I don’t agree” because of differing moral starting points, not facts. When one disagrees on the axioms, there’s not much more one CAN say.
Here’s my position. There are 3 types of occasions where government acts to locally reduce an individual’s liberty. The first is in order to prevent that individual from reducing others’ liberty. The second is in order to improve the welfare of others. The third is to improve the welfare of the specific individual concerned.
I support the right of society to make decisions about the first two, so long as the decision is made in a democracy that involves all rational adults. This is not true of the third, the rights of which I say are morally inviolate. I don’t just come down on one side of any debate about a particular reduction of “third kind” liberty, I deny society’s right to even have the debate at all. Certainly the government can physically make such laws, the government is much stronger than me after all; but I say those laws are apriori immoral, in fact just as immoral as any decision made in a non-democratic society.
As a moral philosopher, I wear two hats. Wearing the first hat, I am an individual, deciding which laws are to be tolerated; wearing the second I am part of society, deciding which laws to vote for.
Speed and alcohol laws, as well as mandated vehicle safety levels are “first kind” issues. They stop individuals hurting others. I first say that society is allowed to democratically make decisions on this, and also as just one citizen I support them. In fact I would vastly expand them.
Provision of the welfare state is a “second kind” local reduction of liberty. Taxes must be raised from individuals to pay for it. It benefits others. I first say that society is allowed to democratically make a decision on this, and also as just one citizen I support it. In fact I would vastly expand it.
Road safety laws like bike helmets and seatbelts are “third kind” issues. They stop individuals from hurting themselves. I deny that society has the right to make decisions on these. It is not true to say this is a “first kind” issue. People who get hurt do not directly impose costs on society (apart from littering with their broken bodies). They just get hurt. Society decides to impose costs on itself by delivering free health care. In other words, since costs on society are not a necessary result of the individual’s failure to wear safety gear (there exist hypothetical societal decisions which would not result in a societal cost), the individual cannot be blamed for the cost. Thus I say the government has no right to make such laws.
As far as deciding how much health care and welfare to give to non-safety-compliant victims in road accidents, there are three possibilities.
1) Leave them on the road to die.
2) Give them healthcare but force them to pay for at least some of it.
3) Give them healthcare for free, and accept the distorted decision making.
I cannot wear my “individual’s hat,” and make pronouncements about “just” and “unjust” decisions here because this is a “second kind” reduction of liberties issue (taxes must be raised to pay for the extra care). I can wear my citizen’s hat and as part of society put my vote forward, to be counted along with every one else. My vote is for option 3). There are plenty of non-internalised costs already. We pay for other people’s children to go to school, we pay for life guards at the beach etc. As Alice said, the search for efficiency can be very inefficient.
This has been a very long comment. I probably won’t say any more about this because I have to go and do some work. I may respond to utilitarian arguments, but I hope no one now is in any doubt as to where I stand on the libertarian front.
John, I have monnthly road toll data for Victoria from when records began in the 1950s to about 1998. Let me know if you’d like it!
@Sam
that was very interesting to me – I haven’t heard libertarians argue to that level of sophistication before. I tend to disagree with libertarians because generally they have a very primitive and misguided notion of the interaction between environment and biological heritage in the construction of the individual. But from your arguments I can see how the libertarian position could be nuanced and have value. thanks.
The libertarian position as outlined by Sam is impossible, no reasonable healthcare system would choose to leave accident victims on the road to die. Which leaves him two possibilities both of which include the giving of healthcare.
It is not up to healthcare to make judgements on the compliance or non compliance of accident victims, as the name describes it they exist to give care to health. The libertarian position as described by Sam is just a fanciful notion where participants freely discuss options and come to mutually beneficial agreements. All this nonsense is thrown out the door in real life emergencies where skilful and immediate action is needed to save life.
@Sam
There are a couple of practical problems with your argument, but from a theoretical point of view it’s completely backwards.
From a practical point of view, injury includes psychological effects. If you think about it, it is primarily a psychological effect: you might loose $1000, you mother may die, etc, but if you don’t care, it’s not a problem. (As I see it, this is one of the main things that makes ethics difficult, we feel things different, someone finds homosexuality immoral, someone else find repression of homosexuality immoral, etc.)
Thus is is simply crazy to claim that you death or injury hurts no one, unless you live your entire life under a rock it will hurt people, and it will hurt some people a lot.
You second problem is that declarations like “I deny society’s right to even have the debate at all” a priori immoral” are really just an unsubstantiated statement of a preference, not an argument at all. The fact that you feel outraged or violated by having to wear a seatbelt is of ethical importance, and should be taken into account, but that’s all, it procribes nothing. For most people, seatbelt laws just doesn’t have the quasi-religious significance you ascribe to them.
The big problem with your argument is that you’ve got ethics backwards. Moral affect was not created with your ego, by your ego, or for your ego. Insects and reptiles are quite capable of self interest, and if self interest was all that is required, we’d just be fighting it out tooth and claw without any need to invent ethical narratives at all.
However, a moral sense has proved biologically adaptive because it allows individuals to interact and cooperate for common goods in spite of their underlying self interest. You should absolutely expect moral concerns to impinge on your personal behaviour because that’s exactly why they exist.
Further, despite numerous attempts to find an underlying abstract basis for ethics, no one has come up with anything universal, so there is no a priori basis to some kind of demarcation for what’s ok and not ok. These are complex “practical” matters synthesised out of biology, history, time, place, stories, and so on. We may argue for a rationalisation of ethics – general principles, inner consistency, and the like – but in the end, your moral sense is created out of thin air by biology using the preexisting capbilities of the brain (eg, the disgust relex) for very practical purposes so it’s a bit crazy to think that it would or should comply with some simple abstract logic.
Liam Enter, I would certainly like to see more comprehensive Australian road toll statistics. The road toll statistics for Victoria you have offered to John from the 1950s to 1998 would be a good start. Is it available on-line? Is it available in a digital electronic format?
I think comprehensive road toll statistics would reveal a lot more than our Governments and the greedy vested interests they serve would want us to know, for example, what is the correlation between the death toll and:
* the crowding of so many millions more people into this country in recent decades?
* abysmal urban design, which forces so many of us to travel, usually by car, vast distance every week to go to work, school, shopping centres, other vital amenities, for recreation or to socialise?
* lack of decent public transport, which is really only just another aspect of Australia’s poor urban design.
Are the Ponzi ‘growth’ economists plans to further double Australia’s population likely to (a) increase or (b) decrease our road fatality rate?
(BTW, I am surprised that my previous comment did not draw a response. Of course, I don’t really mind that much if it doesn’t.)
@daggett
Your argument is one of those act v rule utilitarian claims. It plays fast and loose with collective action problems and tries to sneak things into the uncertainty envelope.
It is specious logic.
We absolutely need rational and robustly enforced road rules. That’s not the same as arguing that everyone who breaches one is reckless or will cause a tangible harm to another’s legitimate interests. What the breacher often does though is impose the risk on people who haven’t consented to it, in much the same way that some one embezzling a trust fund to play the commodity markets may welll make a fortune and yet never cost his or her unwitting creditors a penny. Yet he is still a schyster if he is imposing risk on others to which they have not consented.
If the rules could be robustly enforced in real time, there would be an argument for more variable speed limits and for latitude for those with better maintained vehicles and proven skill and competence i.e. a better match between risks, costs and rewards. The fact that there was more margin for error would create a benefit that could be shared about more equitably. If nobody is driving with PCA and nearly everyone is sticking to the speed limit and respecting traffic control signals and all the demonstrably unfit persons are off the roads as drivers, then maybe everyone can drive a little faster, ceteris paribus.
But making up your own rules to suit is simply externalising the cost of your convenience.
Fran Barlow,
Of course, there have to be laws against unsafe driving practices.
Where did I say that there shouldn’t be?
All the same, it is not easy to define laws that, if adhered to, will make all driving without risk to road users, that is, unless speed limits were set impractically low and every aspect of driving, parking, reversing, changing lanes, etc was subject to strict laws.
Many drivers who, in past decades, did break traffic laws and were caught on occasions and incurred fines, nevertheless, demonstrably did not pose an unacceptable danger to other road users, as a good many such drivers did not have traffic accidents.
This is not to say that the police were wrong to have issued them fines. I simply take issue with the view that acceptable road safety can only be achieved by imposing harsher and harsher penalties.
I think an acceptable level of road safety can only be achieved if all factors contributing to the dangerous state of our roads are rectified. My post identifies others, but you have failed to address any of these.
It had escaped my attention that at the start of the post Professor Quiggin did give the evidence, in hard statistics, which showed conclusively that too little enforcement of traffic rules and automotive safety standards were largely the cause of Victoria’s horrific road toll of 1061 in 1971 as compared to the still unacceptable Victorian road toll of 300 in 2010.
My apologies.
Clearly, unless harsh penalties are applied, the road toll will be unacceptable even on roads as uncrowded as they were in 1971.
Nevertheless, still I think that much of what I wrote in my previous posts still stand.
If acceptable road safety could be achieved just by punishing, ever more harshly, those who have broken rules, which our authorities responsible for road safety tell us divide drivers into those who are driving ‘safely’ and those who are not, we should have achieved that long before now.
If 300 were still killed in 2010, even with the harsh enforcement of traffic rules that was applied then, then I think other factors I have mentioned, which are clearly detrimental to road safety have to be addressed.
@daggett
Actually it’s not the harshness of the punishment that is typically key, but its certainty. If people are not confident they can avoid compliance without penalty, then rather more minor sanctions can be effective. If you simpoly cannot drive with PCA and get fined a small but hurtfull amount + points every time you exceed the limit, almost all will comply.