People tell economists it is immoral to place a value on human life. The problem is that people implicitly do just that in everyday life. They do risky things to save time or money or that simply are fun. Such decisions do not necessarily mean that we are making some grave mistake either individually or collectively. We are just weighing competing priorities.
I write this in reaction to an op-ed piece by Peter Woolley published in this paper on Dec. 29. Woolley, a political science professor, argued that many people are killed or injured in traffic and that we could reduce such deaths by making roads and vehicles safer and by stricter driving laws. He implies that our unwillingness to take these steps is a failure of society.
The facts are clear. Nearly 45,000 people die in traffic accidents each year. Hundreds of thousands are injured. We face a 1-in-84 chance of dying in a crash over our lifetimes. Vehicular accidents are the leading cause of death for those from age 3 to 33.
Clearly, both cars and roads could be made safer. If we all drove slower and if more resources went into curbing aggressive or intoxicated drivers, deaths would fall. Is the fact that there is no public consensus to take these steps proof of our collective irrationality?
Research by economists and psychologists shows some public misinformation and irrationality about certain risks. People worry more about highly publicized but extremely rare dangers like mad cow disease than about well-known dangers from salmonella or campylobacter food contamination.
People also overestimate their chances of harm in situations where they have no control, such as traveling in an airplane. They underestimate risks in other situations where they do have control, such as driving, boating or skiing.
However, evidence of imperfect knowledge or reasoning in some settings does not necessarily mean that 300 million of us are hugely mistaken in accepting existing traffic dangers. It may simply be that people are quite familiar with the dangers they run on the highway and are unwilling to sacrifice much time or money to reduce these risks.
Heavier, slower cars would reduce death and injury, but would cost more and use more fuel per passenger mile. Separate roadways for trucks would increase safety but take land and money. Ditto for guardrails or median barriers on all busy highways.
Measuring how much society would benefit from greater highway safety is difficult. The same is true for food safety, education, health research and public parks. It is very difficult to tabulate some sort of cost-benefit ratio for every different good or service that government provides.
Highway designers can make rudimentary cost-effectiveness calculations. But we are basically left with citizens voting for competing political candidates who lay out their priorities. Some may not agree with the results, but that does not mean society is making a mistake.
© 2007 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.