On 26 Feb 2008 07:41:22 -0500, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
>> Would you choose that 60 million people 
>> were all delayed by an extra 30 minutes every day to save one single life? 
>
>  Yes?

Double Yes
It gets my vote.

Regards
	Stephen

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>> Would you choose that 60 million people
>> were all delayed by an extra 30 minutes every day to save one single 
>> life?
>
>  Yes?

Because you are looking at the problem selfishly and not the whole system. 
Of course, if you said to an individual that if they were forced to wait an 
extra 30 minutes every day to save a life, they might say yes.  But 
goverments need to look at the whole system in order to make a decision, try 
the following:

How much would someone have to pay you if it meant you lost 30 minutes each 
day to being stuck in traffic?

Ask 60 million people that question and add up all their answers, what do 
you think the total would be?  I'd guess around $10 per person on average, 
so say $600 million.

A hospital near you wants to buy some new piece of equipment that will save 
more lives than the old bit.  It's very expensive, let's say it will save an 
extra 10 lives, and costs 10 million dollars.

So, what you are effectively saying is that you'd rather waste $600m of 
peoples time, to avoid having to spend $1m to save a single life.  Good job 
you aren't an economic adviser for your government ;-)

BTW you can substitute the hospital equipment for anything that puts a value 
on human life.  Actually, whenever you buy or use anything that is not 100% 
safe, you are putting a value on your life.

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>>> Would you choose that 60 million people
>>> were all delayed by an extra 30 minutes every day to save one single 
>>> life?
>>
>>  Yes?
> 
> Because you are looking at the problem selfishly and not the whole 
> system. Of course, if you said to an individual that if they were forced 
> to wait an extra 30 minutes every day to save a life, they might say 
> yes.  But goverments need to look at the whole system in order to make a 
> decision, try the following:
> 
> How much would someone have to pay you if it meant you lost 30 minutes 
> each day to being stuck in traffic?
> 
> Ask 60 million people that question and add up all their answers, what 
> do you think the total would be?  I'd guess around $10 per person on 
> average, so say $600 million.
> 
> A hospital near you wants to buy some new piece of equipment that will 
> save more lives than the old bit.  It's very expensive, let's say it 
> will save an extra 10 lives, and costs 10 million dollars.
> 
> So, what you are effectively saying is that you'd rather waste $600m of 
> peoples time, to avoid having to spend $1m to save a single life.  Good 
> job you aren't an economic adviser for your government ;-)
> 
> BTW you can substitute the hospital equipment for anything that puts a 
> value on human life.  Actually, whenever you buy or use anything that is 
> not 100% safe, you are putting a value on your life.

I hate it when people put economics in the way of human lives. The "it's 
not worth saving them" conclusion after doing maths with money.

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> I hate it when people put economics in the way of human lives.

Then you haven't completely understood.

> The "it's not worth saving them" conclusion after doing maths with money.

That's not the conclusion at all.  The conclusion is that instead of 
"spending" $600m on traffic jams to save a single life, we might as well 
spend $600m on hospital equipment to save 600 lives.

The maths is only showing you how bad a decision it is to spend $600m on 
saving one life.  The fact that we put a price on a life helps us save more 
lives by spending wisely.  If you put an infinite price on life, you end up 
with all sorts of stupid decisions, because there isn't an infinite supply 
of money.

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scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> How much would someone have to pay you if it meant you lost 30 minutes each 
> day to being stuck in traffic?

  Let's ask this in another way:

  How long would you be ready to be stuck in traffic if it means that one
life is saved because of the wait?

  Also, you assume that traffic accidents are cheaper for the government
than having to re-pave once in a while. Do you have any hard numbers on this?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>  Let's ask this in another way:
>
>  How long would you be ready to be stuck in traffic if it means that one
> life is saved because of the wait?

That depends on how much I value life, and how much my time is worth.  It 
will be different for every person, but if you average it over 60 million 
people you'll get a figure.  Assume I value life at $1m, and I earn $100k a 
year - that means I would be willing to wait 10 years in a jam to save a 
life.

>  Also, you assume that traffic accidents are cheaper for the government
> than having to re-pave once in a while. Do you have any hard numbers on 
> this?

No, but you can do some simple estimates.  It's going to depend on many 
factors like how often it is snowy, how many roads you have, and how much 
traffic there is.  The numbers for a country like Finland are going to be 
totally different than somewhere like the UK.  Also don't forget that 
repaving creates traffic jams just the same way that accidents do, plus they 
actually cost the government financially (accidents don't).

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47c4355b@news.povray.org...

>  Also, you assume that traffic accidents are cheaper for the government
> than having to re-pave once in a while. Do you have any hard numbers on 
> this?

Here's the ruling that banned studded tires in Ontario in 1971.
http://pubsindex.trb.org/document/view/default.asp?lbid=111434

Basically, this is a typical case of (probabilistic) risk assessment. It's 
an entire field of research and it goes beyond than simply balancing lives 
against budget. Unless there's a specialist of this particular case here I 
don't think that any of us have the data and the skills to run the 
simulations...

G.

-- 
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http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
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scott wrote:
> to be totally different than somewhere like the UK.  Also don't forget 
> that repaving creates traffic jams just the same way that accidents do, 
> plus they actually cost the government financially (accidents don't).

Actually, they do. The place needs to get cleaned up, there's possible 
need for police and firemen and there's a big possibility to get huge 
payloads for medical staff, who repair you after your accident (if they 
can). If a life is lost, all the work that person would've been doing in 
the future is zeroed.

I'm between you as calculating this. I agree with your great lines, but 
not with all the calculation.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> Also don't forget that 
> repaving creates traffic jams just the same way that accidents do, plus they 
> actually cost the government financially (accidents don't).

  I don't know which government you are talking about, but at least here
accidents always cost tax money. Health care, for instance. Also cleaning
up the mess is done by officials, not individuals, so it costs tax money
too. If someone involved got paralyzed, that will cost a lot of tax money.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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scott wrote:
>> I'm pretty sure studded snow tires aren't going to make it safe to 
>> drive if you get the kind of conditions that let the car slide 
>> sideways at a sedate speed without slowing for fifty meters (like at 
>> 1:02 into the video).
> 
> You've never seen cars racing on ice then?  They have metal studs that 
> dig into the ice and create grip 

I've driven on studded snow tires. I am probably misremembering, but I 
don't know that the kinds of studs you get in the USA (at least) would 
give you enough traction to make it *safe*. Safer, sure, but not like 
you could drive normally, say.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

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