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Comment by ansible | Hacker News Reader

This sounds callous, but 245 deaths in 45 years isn't that bad.

Yes, of course I would like safer trains. I would like safer lots of things, especially cars, because so many more people have car accidents and die each year.

Ideally, our government would calculate lives per year saved versus cost for all kinds of proposed laws and regulations. And then we could more fairly decide which things to implement first, based on which would save the most lives.

This requires us to place a specific dollar figure on a human life, which everyone seems reluctant to do.

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The government puts a specific dollar figure on human life all the time. It's not afraid to do that.

But positive train control isn't just about improving safety. It's part of a larger overhaul of the rail system that will allow increased efficiency. E.g. the Acela is much heavier than European passenger trains because of FRA crash standards. If PTC succeeds in reducing the likelihood of crashes and derailments, those regulations could be loosened, allowing lighter and faster trains.

The government puts a specific dollar figure on human life all the time. It's not afraid to do that.

I disagree with that, at least with regards to the USA. Does Congress pass a resolution every year that dictates what a human life is worth? Something that is applied across the board for all legislation, rather than buried deep in the implications of whatever law they're talking about now?

http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/administration/pdf/Value_of...

Based off that, you ought to be willing to spend $1.543 billion to save those 245 lives. The railroads are claiming that they've spent billions attempting to prepare this technology.

If they're accurately representing the costs (big if!), this doesn't sound like it meets the government's own cost-benefit standards, so I'd like to hear more about the rationale behind requiring this technology.

Different agencies use different approaches applicable to their circumstances. For example: http://yosemite.epa.gov/EE%5Cepa%5Ceed.nsf/webpages/Mortalit...

"The EPA does not place a dollar value on individual lives. Rather, when conducting a benefit-cost analysis of new environmental policies, the Agency uses estimates of how much people are willing to pay for small reductions in their risks of dying from adverse health conditions that may be caused by environmental pollution."

"In the scientific literature, these estimates of willingness to pay for small reductions in mortality risks are often referred to as the "value of a statistical life.” This is because these values are typically reported in units that match the aggregate dollar amount that a large group of people would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risks of dying in a year, such that we would expect one fewer death among the group during that year on average."

"EPA recommends that the central estimate of $7.4 million ($2006), updated to the year of the analysis, be used in all benefits analyses that seek to quantify mortality risk reduction benefits regardless of the age, income, or other population characteristics of the affected population."

"We would never dream of placing a dollar value on human life. Therefore, we don't call it that!"

(FWIW, placing a dollar value on life is absolutely necessary in order for any kind of sane optimization, so I completely sympathize with having to use the clever packaging.)

That's something I don't get about US technologist. Everyone says they want progress, but then there's always so many reasons why it shouldn't happen.

A related example would be which of these two road that are better suited for self-driving cars or similar technologies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US33SEOH.JPG

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MMLNorr1.JPG

The nature of technology, and how it's approached, is a pretty fascinating study of and by itself. I've been reading a number of authors on this, off and on, for a few decades (some before I fully realised I was doing so). Included: James Burke, Charles Perrow, W. Brian Arthur, Kevin Kelley, Thomas Kuhn, and Joseph Tainter.

The idea that techology is welcomed with open arms is among many false beliefs. Luddite companies (or countries) are far more influential than individuals, workers, or citizens, often dressing their actions in FUD, regulatory opposition (as here), or buying up (and destroying) competition.

The truth is that companies are interested in promoting their own technologies, where this provides them with some compelling advantage (usually market segmentation, control, or barriers). What they oppose are requirements to adopt technologies imposed externally, or development of disruptive technologies which, again, generally attack their own market interests and/or power.

You need to keep in mind that US highways, as opposed to interstate highways, tend to be roads of secondary importance these days. In the Los Angeles area, for example, a lot of the formerly federal highways became state highways after they were built up to freeway standards, due to various complicated political reasons. Additionally, there are plenty of stretches of US33 which are full divided highways, looking a lot like https://goo.gl/maps/6vc73fZ9nTz. In comparison, Swedish route 34 looks like https://goo.gl/maps/Ur45ukH7Yop outside of town. So both roads are pretty much the same, all things considered, gaining and losing features as the local traffic conditions call for them.

Thankfully improvements in rail architecture could happen while improvements elsewhere are made. While ideally it would be nice to instantly prioritize which is most important to budget for, etc. Starting somewhere will be better than spending 50 years arguing budget.

Japan has had only 5 deaths in the past 45~ years with far more train operation and having bullet trains. With the only fatal occurrence happening due to an earthquake.

(Pre-1960's had only a few accidents, though high fatalities...)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Derailments_in_Japan

In 2005, the Amagasaki rail crash [0] claimed 107 lives. This was a significant disaster and puts the lie to your claim that Japan has had only 5 deaths due to train accidents in approximately the last 45 years.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagasaki_rail_crash

edit: changed "death" to "deaths due to train accidents"

Crap, I missed one... I had checked all of the crashes, as I know Japanese trains are among the safest in the world. By the time I had reached the end of the list it seems I forgot Amagasaki. Thanks for the correction - but lie implies intention. I had no intention of misrepresenting the facts.

I didn't mean to imply intention to mislead on your part. I'm sorry for that.

I think it actually requires comparing relative prices to save a life which only puts a floor on the value of a human life.

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