Sometimes, truth comes from the mouths of babes. Other times, the source is geezers. That was true for an overheard conversation among four retirees in a Slayton diner booth next to mine recently.
When queried about what he was doing, one replied that he had taken his boat to be serviced and had been told a new law required a carbon monoxide detector be installed. A friend responded, “That sounds like another silly regulation the government dreamed up to harass people.” A third said, “Well, there was a little girl who died, and the Legislature passed a law.” The fourth joined in, “Well that is very sad, but having the Legislature pass a law every time something tragic happens is a poor idea.”
This brief exchange aptly sums up a frequent occurrence in democratic societies: Some defect in a device or system causes a tragic death. Shocked and saddened, people seek government action to prevent this from happening again. A new regulation is issued. In reasoned retrospect, thought, it often turns out that the losses averted by the regulation are less than the resources used in complying. Or it becomes clear that, if one wants to reduce tragic harms to society, there are much more effective ways to do it than the new rule.
But there are few political or institutional mechanisms to avoid such ad hoc responses or to ensure effective use of resources in promoting health and safety.
At this point, someone inevitably says, “It is morally wrong to place a value on human life. How can you carp about the cost of installing carbon monoxide detectors if doing so may save the life of another child?”
The answer is that we all make decisions daily that implicitly value human life. My deciding to drive down Highway 30 at 65 mph rather than 45 is a decision to accept a very slightly higher risk of injury or death to myself, or others, in return for time saved on my drive. Passing up a flu or tetanus shot because it isn’t convenient also values time and trouble over a slightly higher mortality risk. A little shake of salt on my steak means I value short-term better taste over longer-term cardiac health. The fact that I’m eating steak and not kale makes the same calculation.
Such trade-offs are both internal and external. Giving up time, money or a pleasant sensation to have a longer life mostly affects me, but not entirely. If I drive 90 mph on bald tires, I may harm others by crashing into them. If I don’t get vaccinated, I marginally increase the odds of others getting a communicable disease. So safety trade-off decisions do not involve just the person making them.
Moreover, there may be cases where I might make bad decisions because important information is missing. I will be more inclined to take a weight-loss supplement if I don’t know that it may damage my heart valve.
Thus, even economists who believe most fundamentally in letting markets function as freely as possible accept cases where government should act to protect public health and safety. But how does society do this to get the greatest benefits in health and life relative to the resources used?
In many cases, Congress or state legislatures act. In response to well-publicized rollovers of Ford Explorers with Firestone tires, Congress passed a law in 2000 requiring the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to take measures. The agency required tire pressure sensors on all new cars after 2007. It also since has issued rules requiring back-up cameras on vehicles sold after 2018 to reduce driving over young children.
In the tire case, Congress ordered a specific technology; in the back-up camera case, the administration acted in response to broad statutory responsibility. In both, studies were done that found the benefits to society exceeded the costs.
In other cases, private entities play a role. The federal Department of Transportation has statutory authority over safety in transportation, including containers for hazardous substances that are moved. Liquid propane gas can be dangerous, and cylinders of it are transported, so the DOT is responsible for its safety.
However, the DOT also defers in some issues to the National Fire Protection Association, which writes fire and electrical codes. In the 1990s, the NFPA decided that all 20-lb LP cylinders should be equipped with an “overfill protection device.” All tanks manufactured after 1996 had to include the device and no existing tanks without the device could be refilled after 2002. This meant that some tens of millions of otherwise serviceable tanks then in use had to be scrapped. There was no mandated cost-benefit study. Some consumers and members of Congress grumbled, but the rule went ahead.
There are skeptics about the actual costs and benefits of all three measures, tire sensors, back-up cameras and overfill protectors. But once any initial kerfuffle dies down, the public pays little attention. That may be a bad thing.
Congress’s mandating “positive train control systems” for all railroads in response to the 2008 collision of a commuter train with a freight in Chatsworth, Calif., is a classic case of dramatic and emotional news driving legislation. The deaths of 25 people and the fact that the engineer of the passenger train had been texting caused public outcry. The act got strong majorities in both parties, including votes from members who had long campaigned against “excessive government regulation.”
Eight years and many billions of dollars later, positive train control is still not a reality. One can take the railroads’ grumbling with a grain of salt, but it is clear Congress acted hastily with no idea of how large and costly the mandate they imposed was. Eventually, lives will be saved, but at an extreme cost compared with other ways in which we might reduce injury and death.
That is the ultimate challenge, and one that our country continues to fail. If one took all causes of illness, injury and premature death and ranked them by the cost of measures to reduce them, one would find little relationship between resource effectiveness and the actions we actually choose to take.
We pass up opportunities to save lives for some tens of thousands of dollars and choose options where the cost per life saved is tens of millions. There is no clear way to overcome this, but prudent hesitation by legislators and members of Congress to pass ad hoc legislation in the wake of tragedies would be good.