[extropy-chat] Driver safety and the immortalist

[Spike]

> > BillK wrote:
...
>  Given that SUVs etc. cause more single car accidents, it's 
> reasonable to assume they cause more multiple car accidents, too. How 
> annoying that SUV drivers should cause more accidents, and then have
higher 
> survivability.

This line of reasoning in tenuous indeed, and I would
dispute it, but let us assume it true for the sake of argument.
Newton has postulated that for every action there is an
equal and opposite reaction.  My conjecture that for
every government action there are unintended consequences.

Those members of government who are convinced that taxes
must be increased have realized that this is best accomplished 
by making cuts in government spending in those areas which
cause the most pain to the most voters.  This area is road repair.  
Not schools, not environmental protection, not welfare, it is in 
road repair.  

Before dismissing this notion as the ranting of some right-wing
ditto-head, consider that the evidence was thrust upon us in the
form of an open microphone in a meeting of Taxifornia state 
legislators.  They plotted against the proletariat by suggesting 
the way to get a supermajority to vote to raise taxes would be to 
cut severely the budget for road repair.  Fortunately, a microphone 
was inadvertently left on, the conversation was broadcast throughout
the capital building, recorded for all posterity, the reprehensible
perps were caught, and their political careers will presumably end 
this fall.  They hate it when that happens.  {8^D

When roads are neglected and allowed to get rough, the unintended 
consequence is an explosion of the popularity of off-road vehicles:
SUVs, pickups, jeeps, humvees, bigger more rugged machines that can
better 
tolerate the rougher surfaces.  There is a reduced popularity of the 
smaller gas-sipping buggies with their lower profile tires and shorter
suspension travel.  If BillK's argument is correct, the secondary 
unintended consequence is that more proles are slain in collisions 
with oversized ORVs, further shifting public choice towards ever-larger 
vehicles.

Conclusions:

Roads *are* public transit.

Good roads save lives.

Build them smooth, wide, long, and plentiful.


spike