Traffic Safety Policy

For example, consider the case for two alternative traffic safety policies. A, and A. Each pohcy has two attributes, x = lives lost and y = money spent. Assume the decision maker is indifferent between A, and A, meaning the decision maker feels that v x, y ) = t (20,(XX) deaths 1 trillion) is equivalent to ufrrj.yj) = t (10,000 deaths 1.5 T). For the sake of simplicity, assume an additive value function, where v(x,y) = (1 — k)vf x) + kVy(y). Given this functional form, the indifference point AI = A2 is used to derive the relation ... 

Because the driver is the controlling element in the road-vehicle-driver system, there is a tendency - especially on the part of authorities - to blame the driver for crashes that may in fact be due to other system failures. This tendency is amplified when the people who set traffic safety policies fail to recognize legitimate driver limitations. 

Figure 18-1. Key organizations that influence traffic safety policy development (WHO, 2004, with permission from the World Health Organization).

The use of total traffic fatalities and the fatal accident rate to dramatize the problem and the emotional appeal for government regulation of the manufacture and use of automobiles comprise the main lines of argument in Senator Ribicoffs advocacy of a federal automobile safety program. To a great extent the current appeal for traffic safety policy is the same as that put forth over twenty years ago. 

The remainder of this book will examine the traffic safety policy of the last twenty years, evaluating especially the contribution of federal standards for vehicle crashworthiness—the new approach which regulates the design and construction of automobiles. 

A FRAMEWORK FOR THINKING ABOUT TRAFFIC SAFETY POLICY... 

A Framework for Thinking About Traffic Safety Policy... 

Underlying the formulation of traffic safety policy is an explicit or implicit model of human behavior concerning traffic safety and response to traffic policy. The prevailing policy approach, at least initially, was one based on passive roadway users. If we doubt perfect passivity, then we should wonder if an approach and research technique well suited to laboratory and clinical setting (the technological approach) is being misapplied to traffic safety with undue ad hoc modifications. 

This model of the dynamics of human conduct in the face of risk has a direct implication for traffic safety policy. Vehicle safety standards will have at most... 

My first conclusion is that the individual benefit-cost approach is highly useful for understanding traffic safety behavior and for thinking about traffic safety policy. The framework is general enough to incorporate the technolo cal and risk homeostatic approaches as special cases. My second conclusion is that roadway users are sufficiently competent and their safety... 

Total costs of motor vehicle accidents are sometimes presented as a measure of need for more traffic safety policy action. For example, see Nelson S. Hartunian, Charles N. Smart and Mark S. Thompson The Incidence and Economic Costs of Major Health Impairments (Lexington, Mass. Lexington Books, 1981). According to our general framework for thinking about traffic safety the correct measure is the smaller, external costs. 

A rationale for a government traffic safety policy which is distinct from incentives, information, incompetency and paternalism is the idea that a transfer of wealth (in the form of more crashworthy vehicles) can be from auto manufacturers to consumers. In the 1965 traffic safety hearing Senator Ribicoff reasoned that since Detroit makes a lot of money it should use profits for safety and Senator Robert Kennedy chastised the executives of General Motors for... 

The message is clear traffic safety policy has produced a sizable reduction in the risk of fatal accident despite the adverse effects of some demographic and economic trends. 

Sam Peltzman s methodological approach differs from the technological approach in that he focuses on human behavior especially driver choice. He begins with an individual benefit-cost framework to traffic safety and combines with it findings from other safety studies to construct counterfactual estimates of traffic fatality rates, hypothetical rates which would have occurred without a national traffic safety policy. We will examine his study in some detail because most of the studies are similar m crucial aspects and hence we can examine other studies more quickly. Peltzman s study is pivotal in that it was one of the first comprehensive evaluative studies. It reintroduced human behavior into traffic safety thinking. 

Using the same methodology Peltzman estimates the contributions of modern traffic safety policy to reductions in the fatality rate. Counterfactual fatality rates are projected for each year during the regulatory period from 1966 to 1972 and compared to the rates which actually occurred. The... 

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. 

A complicating interaction not considered analysis is how passive restraints affect other components of traffic safety policy. Conventional procedures treat policy components as having isolated, independent impacts on effectiveness in... 

Just as imperfections can be found in the traffic safety behavior of individual travelers so can imperfections be found in the formulation and implementation of traffic safety policy. Vehicle technology has been emphasized at the expense of nontechnological safety measures. Safety of passenger car occupants has been emphasized at the expense of other travelers. Net benefits of crashworthiness standards such as mandatory passive restraints have been exaggerated because safety gains are overestimated and some costs are ignored. The Dole Rule on passive restraints only partly satisfies the five criteria for analytical acceptability. 

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