also healthcare cost if you do survive, or social security for those left behind.
it's the same thing with smoking. even ignoring how it affects bystanders it does raise the cost of healthcare
it's the same thing with smoking. even ignoring how it affects bystanders it does raise the cost of healthcare
For the public good, it's valid to have the regulations that say the manufacturer must include seat belts and that they must actually meet a testing standard, and even that kids and others who are not responsible for themselves must be protected from the random judgement of parents until the kids reach an age of taking over responsibility for themselves.
But that's it.
There is even a possible argument that the feeling of safety given by a seatbelt makes drivers more dangerous to everyone outside the car, similar to how bicycle helmets have an element of actually increased risk from a reduction in care taken by both cyclists and drivers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qugb5aGZbEo
"he wasn't one to sacrific torque or horsepower for easy starts or other such petty concenrs"
"an impossible arc across the night sky"
[sfx: frogs, Eartha Kitt on the radio]
I was just waking up when the front tyre went.
At the same time a horse appeared, the headlights blew and the horizon came through the windshield.
I kissed Ertha Kitt and left the road like a jumbo jet diving into a swamp.
Some time later I regained a level of consciousness more ugly than the one I just left.
I'd seen some strange movies on the insides of my eyelids again and now I was wide awake.
my liberty ends where your liberty starts.
as far as i know new zealand is phasing out smoking completely
There is even a possible argument that the feeling of safety given by a seatbelt makes drivers more dangerous
that can be measured and policy be changed accordingly.
personally, i'd go as far as banning private car ownership. instead replace that with better public transport, and smaller mobility devices and taxis for the last mile.
i don't drive and the liberty i get from not having a car that i have to park somewhere is huge. better public transport would increase my liberty to move around even further. so this would not reduce my individual agency, but it would increase it.
>i don't drive and the liberty i get from not having a car that i have to park somewhere is huge. better public transport would increase my liberty to move around even further. so this would not reduce my individual agency, but it would increase it.
To your point, who cares about the justification to your liberties? I drive. Yours end where mine start.
how about the car accident statistics?
or this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39191767
but what i was trying to point out is that not having a car does not reduce your liberty to move around. it actually increases it. now you can argue the specifics, but you can't argue that without a car your general freedom to move around is reduced. because it isn't. (unless of course you make up some specific example that probably does not apply to the majority of the population. i am sure, for any specific case that you can come up with we can find a workable solution. being that there are cars for rent for the few cases that you need one or something else)
This stance intrigues me. I'm curious how much it would cost--economically--to provide every citizen in the US (or even just a single state) with public transport. I'm not so sure it would be more beneficial--macroeconomically--than letting everyone own their own car.
The biggest problem being that, unless you live in a densely-populated area that was planned with public transport in mind, you're going to have a whole lot of people spending a ton of time waiting (e.g. for the bus). And all that time spent waiting is going to have negative economic side effects similar to the negative consequences of people being stuck in traffic.
Something like a free or low-cost, government-run taxi service might work if carpooling was implemented via a decent traveling salesman algorithm but I've never heard of anyone even proposing such a thing. It certainly would make a lot of sense with self-driving, electric vehicles though.
this argument does not consider that if there are no cars, we would need a lot more busses and trains, and then even in a less populated area, public transport makes sense.
only extremely sparsely populated areas would need individual transport.
planned with public transport in mind
why does it have to be planned ahead of time? you take any area, count the traffic, and replace every 20 cars with one bus. you'll find that in many areas that's enough to need a bus every few minutes.
then you take every busy highway and replace it with trains. again, you'll need multiple trains per hour to accommodate everyone.
even in a country with very good public transport like germany, public transport is only 10% of all personal traffic. if all cars were removed, there would have to be 10 times as many trains and busses to make up for that.
a local train that now runs every 20 minutes would then have to run every 2 minutes. instead of an hourly long distance train, you'd need that same train to run every 5 minutes. a small village that only has one bus per day, would still be able to now have a bus per hour. probably in that village many would still keep their car, but they would use it less.
more public transport means a higher frequency, and the whole problem that makes public transport unattractive goes away.
the problem is not the end scenario. the problem is how to get there from where we are now.
This true statement is irrelevant, since one person's seatbelt does not impact anyone else's liberty.
"I don't like cars anyway" is even less relevant.
and i didn't say i don't like cars. i said (maybe not very clearly): cars impact my freedom to move around. see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39192495
in particular read the linked discussion in how cars negatively impact peoples lives.
Alternatively he believes that refusing to wear a seat belt guarantees that a person stays inside a vehicle (through sheer force of liberty and grit) during an impact
Only a wise genius can simply gaze serenely at the moon when asked “does your right to murder people with your corpse rocket impinge on the rights of your human targets?” for only the enlightened know that answering it is a violation of the non aggression policy