Good question. I suspect the risk profile of an electric scooter is much more heavily skewed towards the rider and toward injuries to others, away from deaths to others. But yes, considering offsetting effects are important.
The decline in road fatalities in Australia during the 1980s and 1990s is often celebrated as a success story of road safety regulations and technological advancements. However, it is important to critically evaluate the effectiveness of these measures.
While safety regulations and vehicle improvements may have contributed to the reduction in road fatalities, it is plausible that other factors, such as cultural shifts, played a significant role. Specifically, the decline in alcohol consumption during this period could have had a substantial impact on road safety.
Not to mention improvements to the Hume, Pacific, Great Western, New England and Newell highways (in NSW). You never see road safety statistics normalised for improvements in road infrastructure.
1. To understand “risk” one must consider exposure, particularly for repeatable events. This why the construction industry measures safety performance (the Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate) as per million man hours worked.
2. Your chart of Road Fatalities by age does not reveal all that much because it does not consider exposure. Who is a greater “risk”, the 24 year old male who drives 120km per day to work on a mine site, or the 55 year old nurse who catches public transport to work at Westmead hospital every day? Is it surprising that people in their 20s have more fatalities that people in their 50s? Who does more driving? Your chart should be stated in fatalities/100,000km driven so we can understand which drivers are the greatest risk. It might be easier to reduce gross fatalities by concentrating on the 55-65 cohort if they hardly drive at all.
3. The Insurance incentives explored in Richard’s paper are “opt in”. Until the use of telematics is tested in a completely randomised fashion it will not tell us anything about changes in driver behaviour. Perhaps those who opted in were already the safer cohort of drivers, perhaps they drive less than the average of their cohort, perhaps they drive predominantly in “safer” environments (urban vs rural). Or perhaps not. But until the take up of telematics is randomised we can’t know if it influences driver behaviour.
The idea of applying an insurance-based system to manage road safety is appealing because it individualizes costs and incentivizes responsible behavior. Extending this framework to the prison system is an intriguing proposition worth considering.
In this system, the government could pay insurance companies to release prisoners under their supervision, particularly those charged with non-violent, petty crimes. This approach could reduce the high costs of incarceration and the lost economic contributions of prisoners. Insurance companies, driven by self-interest, could make rational decisions about prisoner release based on risk assessments and rehabilitation potential. This could lead to more efficient and fair outcomes compared to decisions made by politicians or judges, who may be influenced by ideological biases.
However, this approach also presents significant challenges. There are ethical concerns about involving profit-driven entities in decisions about individual liberty. The system would need robust regulatory frameworks to prevent abuses and ensure that insurance companies act in the public interest. Additionally, in the current climate of skepticism towards neoliberal policies, this approach might face substantial opposition. It would be crucial to demonstrate the potential benefits clearly and address concerns about privatizing aspects of the criminal justice system.
In conclusion, while an insurance-based approach to prison management offers potential benefits in cost savings and rational decision-making, it also presents challenges that would need to be addressed through careful policy design and public engagement.
Safer drivers is an important part of a safe systems approach to road safety, however a safe system also recognises that people are not perfect, they will always make mistakes, sometimes even make bad decisions like driving when tired or under the influence of drugs and alcohol. If people are fallible, then the best solution is to make our roads safe and protect vulnerable road users. That means roads need run-off areas, guardrails, and speed zone enforcement (like average speed cameras), and streets need low speeds and better infrastructure like wombat crossings and protected bike lanes. Physics says vehicles shouldn't travel faster than 30km/h where there are pedestrians and cyclists, it's not politics it's the laws of the universe.
Economists can help by changing the way we assess the economic value of road projects (and all transport projects), from travel time savings (which are always calculated by speed improvements), and start calculating the value of access to destinations. Valuing accessibility demonstrates that transport systems are more valuable when they cluster things closer together, rather than spread them apart, and provide more choices to use different modes of travel. A network that reduces the need to travel, the speed of travel, and provides more choice is not only cheaper and more valuable, it's also safer.
When you drill down into the data, a high proportion of these fatal accidents are in regional / remote Australia, on roads with a posted speed limit of 100km +, so it's always going to be tricky to provide that safe system over those long distances.
Pricing young people out of car ownership is probably going to drive them onto electric scooters and bikes. More pedestrian injuries & fatalities ?
Good question. I suspect the risk profile of an electric scooter is much more heavily skewed towards the rider and toward injuries to others, away from deaths to others. But yes, considering offsetting effects are important.
The decline in road fatalities in Australia during the 1980s and 1990s is often celebrated as a success story of road safety regulations and technological advancements. However, it is important to critically evaluate the effectiveness of these measures.
While safety regulations and vehicle improvements may have contributed to the reduction in road fatalities, it is plausible that other factors, such as cultural shifts, played a significant role. Specifically, the decline in alcohol consumption during this period could have had a substantial impact on road safety.
Not to mention improvements to the Hume, Pacific, Great Western, New England and Newell highways (in NSW). You never see road safety statistics normalised for improvements in road infrastructure.
Some points perhaps worth considering:
1. To understand “risk” one must consider exposure, particularly for repeatable events. This why the construction industry measures safety performance (the Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate) as per million man hours worked.
2. Your chart of Road Fatalities by age does not reveal all that much because it does not consider exposure. Who is a greater “risk”, the 24 year old male who drives 120km per day to work on a mine site, or the 55 year old nurse who catches public transport to work at Westmead hospital every day? Is it surprising that people in their 20s have more fatalities that people in their 50s? Who does more driving? Your chart should be stated in fatalities/100,000km driven so we can understand which drivers are the greatest risk. It might be easier to reduce gross fatalities by concentrating on the 55-65 cohort if they hardly drive at all.
3. The Insurance incentives explored in Richard’s paper are “opt in”. Until the use of telematics is tested in a completely randomised fashion it will not tell us anything about changes in driver behaviour. Perhaps those who opted in were already the safer cohort of drivers, perhaps they drive less than the average of their cohort, perhaps they drive predominantly in “safer” environments (urban vs rural). Or perhaps not. But until the take up of telematics is randomised we can’t know if it influences driver behaviour.
Cheers
B.
The idea of applying an insurance-based system to manage road safety is appealing because it individualizes costs and incentivizes responsible behavior. Extending this framework to the prison system is an intriguing proposition worth considering.
In this system, the government could pay insurance companies to release prisoners under their supervision, particularly those charged with non-violent, petty crimes. This approach could reduce the high costs of incarceration and the lost economic contributions of prisoners. Insurance companies, driven by self-interest, could make rational decisions about prisoner release based on risk assessments and rehabilitation potential. This could lead to more efficient and fair outcomes compared to decisions made by politicians or judges, who may be influenced by ideological biases.
However, this approach also presents significant challenges. There are ethical concerns about involving profit-driven entities in decisions about individual liberty. The system would need robust regulatory frameworks to prevent abuses and ensure that insurance companies act in the public interest. Additionally, in the current climate of skepticism towards neoliberal policies, this approach might face substantial opposition. It would be crucial to demonstrate the potential benefits clearly and address concerns about privatizing aspects of the criminal justice system.
In conclusion, while an insurance-based approach to prison management offers potential benefits in cost savings and rational decision-making, it also presents challenges that would need to be addressed through careful policy design and public engagement.
Safer drivers is an important part of a safe systems approach to road safety, however a safe system also recognises that people are not perfect, they will always make mistakes, sometimes even make bad decisions like driving when tired or under the influence of drugs and alcohol. If people are fallible, then the best solution is to make our roads safe and protect vulnerable road users. That means roads need run-off areas, guardrails, and speed zone enforcement (like average speed cameras), and streets need low speeds and better infrastructure like wombat crossings and protected bike lanes. Physics says vehicles shouldn't travel faster than 30km/h where there are pedestrians and cyclists, it's not politics it's the laws of the universe.
Economists can help by changing the way we assess the economic value of road projects (and all transport projects), from travel time savings (which are always calculated by speed improvements), and start calculating the value of access to destinations. Valuing accessibility demonstrates that transport systems are more valuable when they cluster things closer together, rather than spread them apart, and provide more choices to use different modes of travel. A network that reduces the need to travel, the speed of travel, and provides more choice is not only cheaper and more valuable, it's also safer.
When you drill down into the data, a high proportion of these fatal accidents are in regional / remote Australia, on roads with a posted speed limit of 100km +, so it's always going to be tricky to provide that safe system over those long distances.