Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[danbrotherston]

Dan, Vision Zero is great marketing and sounds like a good effective program.  But if you believe that it’s actually a path to zero fatalities while still allowing cars to travel at speeds of 100 km/h you’re deluding yourself.  There will *always* be fatal crashes if we let the majority of individuals drive and let them drive at high speeds.

You’re similarly deluded if you believe everything else is unaccepting id casualties. It’s all risk mitigation.  I’ve given you obvious ones (investigating all actual deaths in healthcare).  And can keep giving you more.  We know crew fatigue is a major cause of plane crashes (or any form of accident).  We set duty and rest limits not to maximize safety but to optimize safety while still keeping commercial aviation (and other industries) economically viable.

There’s not much point continuing down this path.  I’m not sure what else I can say to make it clear that cost/benefit analysis for human life is happening everywhere.  

I guess one final point I’d make is that I view the world as a very complex place with lots of trade offs.  Decreasing travel time means more time with families.  Doing leisure activities.  Less stress. Etc.  Is a change from 100 to 120 a net benefit here, who knows at this point.  But I know that a world that really thought all traffic fatalities were unacceptable would be miserable in a lot of other ways.

Deluded, or just informed.  You go get a job as a structure engineer who offers to build a bridge that collapses x percent of the time, and see how far you get.  You're right, there doesn't seem to be any point in continuing down this path, since you've decided you're right, and that if you cannot eliminate all risk, then we have nothing to learn and there's no point in prioritizing reducing harm at all...

But hey, seems like the government agrees with you, along with most of the traffic engineering industry.

Lemme know though, which of your family members you think are worth sacrificing to get somewhere slightly faster?