The quest for perfect safety

Back in 1999, I wrote a brief comment on my web page, prompted by a friend's outrage over a decision made by a car company. Some poor soul burned to death in a car crash. Much was made over the fact that a device, costing $8 per car, would have prevented his death had it been in the car.

The car company decided it would be cheaper to pay the lawsuit from the expected number of resulting deaths than to install this device.

The media reaction, and the reaction of my friends, focussed on the $8 cost for that one car. I pointed out the cost to the car company is not eight dollars, but rather eight dollars times the size of the fleet, and if the circumstance that part is designed to prevent is rare enough, the vast majority of those devices will never be used.

For the one car where the device is used, it's worth it. But the result of installing it in all cars is that the cost of every car in the fleet is increased by eight dollars. (Plus the cost of the labor required to install it, plus, probably a few other incidental costs that will result in it costing a lot more than eight dollars.) Cars are already expensive, and every incremental increase in cost is going to push the price of a car out of the reach of some people.

That means more people using public transportation of varying degrees of quality (My experience with the Los Angeles transit system is that it takes three times longer for me to get anywhere than it does by car.) or buying an older car that needs more maintenance, pollutes more, and has fewer safety features either mandated in the first place or still working.

The more people drive in older cars, the more everyone's lives are put at risk. The net result of adding an eight dollar gadget to prevent a tiny number of deaths may result in more deaths.

When I pointed out that the true cost of the eight dollar device is probably higher, summed across the fleet, than the value of the life saved, I got an irate e-mail expressing dismay at this cold-hearted calculation. "Saving a life is worth any cost," runs the argument.

I sent a reply pointing out that the fellow's own actions almost certainly belied this sentiment. I could guarantee that he, having a finite amount of money at his disposal, did not buy all the things he would need to live the safest possible life. As long as his car is not the statistically safest car on the road, with an arbitrarily large number of custom add-ons to increase safety, he is not opting for economy over saving a life. As long as he drinks water that hasn't been ultra-purified (at some $5 per gallon) with the optimum blend of minerals dissolved back in, he's choosing economy over saving a life. If he's not paying millions of dollars to have food animals and plants raised in an ultrapurified pollution-free environment chamber to minimize their uptake of carcinogens, he's choosing economy over saving a life.

And just to increase the hypocrisy in his position, the life he's choosing to trade for some small economy is not that of some faceless stranger. It's one of the lives most important to him – his own.

For some reason, he chose not to continue this line of conversation.

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Thomas Sowell has some recent pieces on the same point.

In this one, he observes that many football players are wearing less padding than they're allowed to.

The NFL players know that padding gives some protection against injuries – but at a price. Carrying the extra weight of padding around slows players down, making them less effective on the football field and perhaps less able to quickly get out of the way of tackles and collisions. In short, they understand that safety is not a free lunch but something you have to pay for, in one way or another.

On the other hand, someone who might choose an increase in the risk of heart trouble to avoid the pain of arthritis can't choose to do so. Vioxx has been pulled from the market because of a slight increase in risk.

In this one, he contrasts attitudes toward activities with varying risks and benefits.

The government will allow you to risk your life for the sake of recreation by sky-diving, mountain climbing or any number of other dangerous activities. But it will not allow you to risk your life for the sake of avoiding arthritis pain by taking Vioxx.

DDT has been banned. Alternatives are more expensive and less effective, which results in a higher death rate due to malaria.

One death in the boxing ring triggers demands for increased safety equipment. Hundreds of deaths in boating accidents raise barely a ripple in the pond.

Corporations that offer dangerous recreational activities, such as skydiving, are never accused of profiteering from putting people at risk of their lives. Drug companies and car companies often are.

In realms outside of safety and product-related deaths, did you know that America is stingy? Other countries donate more than we do in foreign aid. (If you only count government foreign aid programs and ignore private charity. And if you ignore the costs incurred in combating those who would endanger the rest of the world.)

A politician who spends others' tax money on social programs is lauded for his compassion, but a business man who donates millions of his own money to help the needy is ignored.

Sowell ascribes the difference to a particular vision which guides those who choose which activities to limit.

This is not to say that there is no consistency in their behavior. There is great consistency but it is consistency with a particular vision of the world rather than consistency with proclaimed principles of safety, equality, or morality. That vision casts them in the role of wiser and nobler people – defenders of the downtrodden, protectors of the environment, advocates of peace and opponents of war. There is always some crusade that requires their superior wisdom and virtue to be imposed on others.

So why do the "wiser and nobler" choose the issues they do to focus on? That's a whole 'nother story.

To learn more of that story, take a look at these books:

Sowell, Thomas

Vision of the Anointed Self-Congratulation as Social Policy.

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles.