Comment by the_gipsy
2 days ago
That doesn't make any sense. Eliminatung DUI is not a matter of detection, and automatic light sensors save lives.
2 days ago
That doesn't make any sense. Eliminatung DUI is not a matter of detection, and automatic light sensors save lives.
It could make sense. We don't know the numbers.
Let's say net X lives are saved each year because of automatic lights turning on.
Let's say net Y lives would be saved each year without automatic lights, via more effective detection of drunk drivers and stopping them before they kill someone.
Is X > Y? We don't know.
> Eliminatung DUI is not a matter of detection
There are a lot of avenues to decrease DUI, among which one is effective detection combined with enforcement.
Okay, let's compare it to: Let's not make auto-pilot mandatory in planes, because sometimes a copilot has found that a pilot was drunk when taking off manually.
Even if there was a drunken pilot epidemic that causes 10 plane crashes per year, and autopilot only prevents 1 plane crash per year, it would be ridiculous not to make the autopilot mandatory and rely on its absence to catch some of those drunken pilot crashes.
I don't agree. Why would that be ridiculous?
In the example you give, if the copilot catches the pilot more than 10% of the time, then the swap to mandatory autopilot kills more people than not doing it.
I hardly think it would be ridiculous to want to save more lives.
The EU has done lots of reach on road and car safety, there's lots of data out there - just perhaps not in the US as many American made cars have significantly lagged behind in terms of safety features.
I don't know if it's an EU rule, but in my (European) country cars are required to have their lights on at all times, even during the day. The lights switch on automatically when you start the car
4 replies →
The EU also is far more strict on DUIs.
There may be something like that that does make it counterintuitive. Usually those kind of Malcom Gladwell paradoxes end up overstated.
There would be other factors, like drunk people are probably safer with their lights on too. Lane keeping probably makes it harder to detect drunk drivers too but also may make them safer.
This is simply because police don’t do their jobs. It would be trivial to simply wait outside bars at 2AM and give out tons of DUIs but a significant percentage of the population are alcoholics and this would result in massive blowback against the police.
Go to any small town watering hole at 2AM to see this in effect. The police have no legal obligation to prevent crime or enforce laws. None.