You are quite right as long as the safety/aesthetic trade off only effects your own safety. Your argument is spot on for measures such as seat belts and restrictive legislation about the interior layout of a vehicle.

When we're talking about safety regulations that increase protection of third parties from your actions then the case is much, much weaker.

As you say, it might be "worth it to get to your destination that bit quicker, or maybe, you enjoy the thrill". But that self indulgence kills a 1000 people every year in the UK and leaves many more hospitalised. As the casulties are likely to be third parties not the thrill seeker with the throttle, any libertarian justification for a 'right to speed' looks a bit thin.

As to the external design of cars, in an ideal world we could all drive whatever we choose. But in that same world, anyone who killed or injured because they failed to take into account their scyth-like bonnet would be suitably punished.

Today, of course, we are wedded to the idea that on the road (as opposed to railways etc), 'accidents happen'. Kill a cyclist and you're likely to get 6 points and be fined less than the cost of the bike.

In this environment the blunt instruments of speed and external design regulation are all we have.

When we're talking about safety regulations that increase protection of third parties from your actions then the case is much, much weaker.

Not really.

That problem can be dealt with by tort law: I crash my car into yours, you then sue me for damages. The possibility of having to pay damages provides some deterrent against taking risks. Or, if I buy liability insurance in anticipation of such an event, I would then find the safety rules imposed on me by the insurance company.

If damages for tortious killing were set to the revealed-preference value of a life, and the law were changed so that inchoate tort claims were treated as transferable property, then tort law should work even in cases where the victim has been killed and, under the present system, no-one can sue.

State regulation isn't as necessary as you might think.

"But that self indulgence kills a 1000 people every year in the UK and leaves many more hospitalised. As the casulties are likely to be third parties not the thrill seeker with the throttle,"

Any stats on this?

Andy

Could you explain to those ignorant souls amongst us who haven't read Hayek and Hoppe the meaning of terms like "revealed-preference value" and "inchoate tort claims".

Incidentally, I think Not Responding is more concerned with accidents where it is the victim who is at fault.

Law's Order by David Friedman is the book you want to read. (You really, really must read that book, Patrick. The whole book is webbed here. I've only read one of Hayek's books - The Road to Serfdom, and I've never read Hoppe.)

Revealed-preference value of a life: Suppose I have two ways of earning a living - driving trucks of sand or driving trucks of dynamite. Both jobs are identical, except that I have a 1% chance of being killed if my truck of dynamite blows up; trucks of sand don't blow up. The total pay I'd get from driving trucks of dynamite is £10,000 greater than from driving trucks of sand.

If I take the job driving trucks of dynamite, I'm giving up 1% of my life (statistically speaking) in exchange for a 99% chance of £10,000. Thus, my actions reveal that I value my life at less than £990,000.

Inchoate tort claim: a claim for damages for a tort which might happen some time in the future.

If they were transferable property and, say, the average damages for tortious killing was £1 million and I had a 1% chance of being tortiously killed, then I could sell my inchoate tort claim for up to £10,000 to my insurance company. In the event of my being killed, the insurance company sues and receives any damages.

Does that clear things up?

There are basically two principles of effective safety management - safe plant and safe person. Unfortunately this is very much a case of the former. The nanny state prefers safe plant and ignores the benefits of improving peoples' skills and sense of responsibility by applying the safe person approach.

Redesigning vehicles to be less injurious in the event of an incident makes no attempt to prevent the incident in the first place.

Of course 'aestheitics' matter. However what is negated is the value of 'time'. So, it is 'aesthetic' to stand around in bars drinking and fagging, but it has a health cost accumalated at a later date. A health cost that often isn't recognised until it's too late, that is until the health effects are more immediately felt. And then it's too late.

The view that 1/3 of road casulties are speed related comes from TRL;

"Marie Taylor, head of TRL’s programme of research on speed and accidents, has commented on the erroneous interpretation of TRL323. She points out that in addition to speed being recorded as a factor, it will have been ‘part of the reason for other factors being recorded’ such as failure to judge another’s path or speed. It will compound factors such as following too close and aggressive driving. Finally, she notes that excessive speed was recorded as a factor in more than a third of the fatal crashes recorded and that the contribution from other speed-related factors ‘will mean that the true effect of speed is likely to be even greater'" ( from http://www.pacts.org.uk/policy/briefings/speedcamerabriefing.pdf)

In response to the revealed-value theory, how much does the theory suggest a speed lover need to be insured for to cover killing my 5 year old daughter? What's her revealed value?

There is no "revealed-value theory". The theory is neo-classical economics. One of its postulates is that people's preferences are revealed by their actions.

The point of using tort law is that damage payments provide an incentive to take precautions, thereby reducing the number of accidents.

I've read that the typical American is estimated to value his own life in the range of $1-10 million. Civil damages of $1 million would be considerably harsher than the present criminal punishment for most deaths caused in road accidents. With liability insurance for such damages, it's quite possible that an insurance company's regulations will be even stricter than the state's.

Do you have a specific objection to this?

That, surely is the crux of the matter which seems to be consistently ignored. Vehicle design, speed reduction measures and traffic calming do not change the root cause of accidents - bad driving, which may include inappropriate use of speed. The root cause is not machinery or speed, it is people. Changes, therefore, should be targeted at changing behaviour so that the accident doesn't happen, not try to mitigate it after it has. Substantial use of civil law would be a step in that direction.

I have no idea what the accident stats actually are, but I have the subjective impression from living in Germany for five years that drivers here are generally much better than in the UK. One reason for this, I believe, is the no-speed-limit autobahns where people get used to the idea of having to make their own judgements about responsiblity and their car-handling abilities instead of having nanny tell them what to do.

Driving at 130 and having to think about backing off/covering the brakes if somebody pullled out half a mile ahead was certainly good for my general habits of anticipation on the road. And I suspect for those who like driving fast, having the autobahn as an outlet may reduce the urge to do it in other places where it might be far more dangerous.