Policy Evaluation and A Framework for Thinking

In Chapter 2, we compared the individual benefit-cost approach to the less general technological and risk homeostatic approaches and reviewed representative evidence on insurance, gambling, risk perception and safety belt use. We concluded the approach is useful for thinking about traffic safety policy. The evidence reviewed in this chapter led us to conclude that risk compensation exists in auto safety regulation and that policy benefits were overestimated. The evidence demonstrates that a general model such as ours must be used if formulation and evaluation of traffic safety policy is to be of high quality. 

In this chapter we demonstrated the absurdity of NHTSA s claim that all of the 39 percent decline in the total fatality rate since 1966 can be attributed to its regulatory programs. We have seen instead that some of the decline can be attributed to NHTSA programs, but that other important factors exist as well. An optimistic current estimate is that some indication exists that NHTSA also is aware that a comprehensive framework is necessary for policy evaluation. In Traffic Scfety 84, the successor to Motor Vehicle Safety 1979, NHTSA again describes the downward trend in the fatality rate since 1966 when federal traffic safety legislation was passed. However, in the 1984 report only partial credit is claimed for the reduction in the fatality rate. Acknowledgment is given to many factors only one of which is the set of auto safety standards. An individual net benefit approach to traffic safety facilitates systematic consideration and analysis of all of the factors. 

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