Discussion of security in "Traffic"
 

I just finished reading "Traffic," by Tom Vanderbilt. It's a GREAT book; beautifully written, compelling arguments. It discusses topics like traffic jams, driver behavior, road design, and--above all--safety.

The last chapter looks at automobile accidents compared to the risk of terrorism. To put it in perspective: more people die each month in auto accidents than from the September 11th attacks.

Vanderbilt argues that the social psychology of risk comes into play: auto accidents are so prevalent that they are routine. The statistical rarity of terrorism is what makes it so much more threatening.

Imagine if we took all of the money spent on puffer machines, plastic bags, shoe inspections, and gate screening and spent it on road safety?

Above all, the hassle factor prevents travelers from traveling by air. If the TSA's antics mean that more people will travel by car, they put more lives at risk.

The comparison of 9/11 to auto accidents doesn't work. Accidents are an unfortunate result of normal activity by so many people in such a confined space. He needs to compare criminal activity to criminal activity.

The traffic accident comparison works for fear of plane crashes versus risk of driving to the airport, things like that. But this seems to apples/oranges.

Why? You seem to be implying the lives of victims of terrorism are worth more than the lives of victims of road accidents. Personally I disagree.

Don't think I did that. I certainly didn't mean to. I was pointing out that 9/11 was a deliberate act against people, whereas traffic accidents occur as a result of, well, accidents. So psychological comparisons related to irrational fears would seem to me to be a bit out of whack.

What makes them more frightening is the physical violence involved. People die from all kinds of natural causes, yet those aren't nearly as scary to most people as interpersonal violence and murder, which is interesting because in both cases you end up dead. But street crime, terrorism, etc. seems much scarier.

Sure, but if we took even 10% of the $$ spent in response to 9/11 to improve traffic safety, and used it to it reduce the annual fatality rate by 5%, we would be way ahead. I think those numbers could easily work, we spend next to nothing in most states on driver training, and it shows on the roads.

Each MONTH? The death toll from the 9/11 attacks (~3000 people) is approximately the number of people who die in road accidents every day.

Kudos to Vanderbilt for writing a book about it, but I've been pointing out to the TSA for years that more lives would be saved if they just shut the whole airline security thing down, let terrorists bring down an airliner every month, and the funds saved used to instead bring down traffic fataliities by just 1%. None of the "logic" behind the TSA's priorities makes any sense.

Where? Annual auto fatalities in the US is about 40K to 50K.

Global statistics are hard to find, because not everywhere uses the same criteria/methodology, but it's efforts to persuade people to take the problem more seriously, the UN estimated annual road deaths at around 1,2 million (or an average of a bit over 3K daily) for 2006, IIRC. Can't find the link at present, but a US average of 40 - 50K seems consistent with that number.

flyinbob has a point, but it's all applesauce if you grant that each tax dollar spent on airport security is one tax dollar diverted from a more efficient program.

Fear sells... those in charge need fear to keep their programs going.
Ignore the everyday and worry far-fetched.

OK, if you want to compare "crime" to "crime", about 5,500 young people, ages 10-24, are killed each year in this country due to an act of violence.

Take the money being wasted on the TSA and direct it toward reducing those deaths, as well as traffic deaths.

OK, I really agree with the premise. The problem is where do you put this money so it actually will reduce those deaths, either crime or auto accident? How much safer do people want to be without sacrificing some freedom? This is why TSA sucks. They were given lots of money and no oversight while setting up, so went way overboard with the rules and regulations, and we know the result is we are no more safe today than pre-9/11. So what do you spend money on to make streets safer? Make all roads 10 mph? Stop signs every 50 feet? Video cameras everywhere to "watch" for crime? I'm with you on cutting TSA way back. But how about just giving us taxpayers our money back?

There's also a control element. Once you board a commercial flight, you have effectively given up any control of your fate until you de-plane.

On the other hand, drivers can individually choose not to drive drunk, not to drive in a poorly-maintained car, not to drive between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., not to drive in a blizzard, etc.

I've never fully bought the "flying is safer than driving" argument in part because I have never seen a statistical comparison between the risks of flying to the risks of "safe" driving. I'm not sure that flying is any safer than driving, provided I choose not to drive drunk, don't drive between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., and maintain my car. Sure, i can't prevent some random drunk guy from t-boning me on my morning commute. But such a large percentage of car fatalities involve either stupid actions (drunkenness) or questionable actions (driving a 3 a.m. on Sunday morning) on the part of the driver himself, that I wonder if eliminating those avoidable risks would tip the safety scale in favor of driving.

So of those wrecks were accidents but more time then not those wrecks happened because of deliberate actions by the driver, so your arguement is awash.

Trust me i see what happens with aggressive drivers every day, because I end up hauling them, there acts were not a accident they were deliberate. two weeks ago i witnessed a driver who was in a hurry weaving through lanes of traffic end up hitting another car sending it spinning into the wall and then watched the aggressor do a full flip and then roll down the highway landing on the roof, that wreck sent 8 people to the hospital in critical condition requiring 4 to be flown due to head injuries. In the end there where 3 fatalities from the wreck but they werent counted in the stats because they died just a couple of days ago, but there deaths where results of injuries sustained in the accident. Im not going to go into the rest of the details of the accident but the desensitizing of car wrecks is correct as opposed to a airplane being used in the same manner but the end result is the same death, destruction and economic damage.

The Stats on deaths are messed up because they only count DOS (Dead on Scene) totals and not the ones that die, days, weeks later after then event. so that many people dieing on a daily/ weekly basis sound about right and should be in the range of the 9/11 toll.

YMMV, but this is based on in-field experince of what i see every day of my life.

Now that is a much more salient argument, and I'm going to venture out on the limb and say that that was the real point of the OP's post, not the argument about how many people die in car accidents or the value of lives. Rather, the TSA has spent a fortune on Risk Avoidance rather than Risk Management. We certainly could cut the risk of auto accidents by lowering the speed limit to 10 mph, but society has decided that the amount of lives saved is insufficient to offset the lost convenience. Yet we allow the goons in DHS to spend all of this money on terrorism because it is a much more shocking event that gets lots of good press coverage. Auto accidents? Been there, done that, seems to be the attitude.

Mike

According to the book, most road deaths involve sober drivers who are not speeding.

Although there are no perfect answers, I think that the money should go toward building safer roads and maintaining the roads we currently have. There isn't enough money to maintain our roads and therefore keep them safe.

But we're dealing with a failure in American politics and public health. Public and political interest--and therefore money--is being diverted to the items of greatest emotional interest, not the areas of greatest risk.

If I could, I'd slash the TSA into a much smaller, much simpler, much cheaper organization. Then I'd protect the safety of the "homeland" by building safer roads, ending tobacco addiction, and preventing the spread of HIV. But that just seems way to rational for Washington.

We regret to inform you that rational thought and ideas that aren't based on scaring the crap out of people aren't welcome here. But if you throw in some funds for "tasering people who talk on the cell phone while driving," I'll allow you to stay. ;)

Mike

Plus you forgot to ask him why he hates America. :)

In an excellent paper by Ohio State political science professor John Mueller, "The Quixotic Quest for Invulnerability: Assessing the Costs, Benefits, and Probabilities of Protecting the Homeland," there are some common sense premises and policy implications.

The premises:

"1. The number of potential terrorist targets is essentially infinite.

"2. The probability that any individual target will be attacked is essentially zero.

"3. If one potential target happens to enjoy a degree of protection, the agile terrorist usually can readily move on to another one.

"4. Most targets are 'vulnerable' in that it is not very difficult to damage them, but invulnerable in that they can be rebuilt in fairly short order and at tolerable expense.

"5. It is essentially impossible to make a very wide variety of potential terrorist targets invulnerable except by completely closing them down."

The policy implications:

"1. Any protective policy should be compared to a "null case": do nothing, and use the money saved to rebuild and to compensate any victims.

"2. Abandon any effort to imagine a terrorist target list.

"3. Consider negative effects of protection measures: not only direct cost, but inconvenience, enhancement of fear, negative economic impacts, reduction of liberties.

"4. Consider the opportunity costs, the tradeoffs, of protection measures."


http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/facu...er/ISA2008.pdf

I also just finished the book, and it is very interesting and provocative. Vanderbilt says the term 'accident' is inaccurate; we have a system in which crashes (his word) are inevitable.

We are willing to spend money and give up rights to counter terrorism, but are unwilling to spend money or give up rights or change our habits to save thousands of lives (in the U.S.) each and every month.

If you're for ending AIDS, you must be for controlling the behavior of present and potential victims....in most cases, it's a behavorial disease.

What's the difference between telling a guy he "must" wear a condom to prevent AIDS or "can't" us IV drugs (which we already have outlawed) vs. telling a guy he can't bring a switchblade on a plane? Not much really.

Difference is, you can ensure compliance with one becuase you can monitor the guy bringing a switchblade on a plane and you can't monitor what the guy does in the bedroom.

And don't give me the "education" re:AIDS because everybody with an IQ over 40 knows how AIDS is spread - in the vast majority of cases they simply choose to ignore it and spread the disease anyway. Think about it - everybody "knows" how babies are made, but that doesn't change the alarming rate of unwed/unplanned pregnancies in the country today.

/soapbox :cool:

It's a great paper. It's been discussed heavily on here and posted on the blog as well. ;)

Cargojon,
I was thinking of a vaccine.
But I understand your arguments.

I thought Mike already explained that sensible reasoning isn't welcome here -- in fact, the TSA should start screening passengers for logic, as no one but a terrorist would bring logic to an airport.

I'm certain that some knowledgeable FTer will advise on this: Have not some PDs gone from classifying "accidents" as "crashes" because of the above? IOW, there are no official vehicle "accidents", only "crashes."

You can monitor roads to see where the local accident blackspots are and improve them - on a road I used to live close to, there were a few very notorious points, usually close to junctions, which, because funding couldn't be found, they could not be made safe. (The only way to improve one was to turn an open junction into a bridge and flyover situation. The other likely would have needed to have the junction entirely realigned.) So the council had to accept that a few people would die at each of those points ever few years, until they could scrape together the funding.

Now, imagine being able to start throwing some serious money at road design and maintenance. Improve the driver training systems (getting a licence sounds suspiciously easy compared to what I went through). Bring in a comprehensive roadworthiness tests for vehicles to reduce the likelihood of critical failures causing accidents.

The fact that accident rates all over the world are variable and not fixed shows that it is entirely possible to reduce accident rates. It's not surprise that in Europe, Scandinavia has some of the lowest accident rates, since their driving standards are some of the highest in Europe and they have extremely good roads.