This is all factual information and I don’t dispute that, but MOCO does not realize most of these costs associated with car crashes that occur within its jurisdiction. These losses are realized by private mostly non governmental parties, car insurers, passengers, health insurance companies. MOCO should only consider the financial savings directly realized from these traffic safety improvements. It is not fiscally sustainable to include indirect financial savings not realized by the county. So the cost benefit analysis that determines whether the improvements are a sensible decision is $ value of preventing one death (using average age of county resident and average remaining life expectancy)+ direct financial savings realized by the county. |
And cost savings in future years should be present value discounted by the current borrowing rate the county pays on long-term bonds. |
I'll put this in a way that makes more sense to drivers. For the same price as adding one lane for one mile on a minor road, you could have a dozen or more roundabout conversions. You will get a lot better traffic flow with a dozen roundabouts than one lane-mile. The safety benefit is now "free." Once again presuming human life and health are without value. |
MoCo also doesn't pay the cost of a driver possibly having to spend a fraction of a minute longer on their drive because they had to drive more slowly. So we can cross that off the list of considerations. |
You are making a magical assumption that doesn’t mesh with reality given that there are finite resources. This logic is well-intentioned, but it will actually cause more deaths because the county will end up consuming finite resources on economically unproductive uses. Just for comparison 50 million is enough to give every resident in the county a bottle of Narcan. There were around 100 overdose deaths last year and this use of 50 million would prevent much more than 1 death. |
You're all over the place here. Should the "cost benefit analysis" include ONLY costs DIRECTLY paid by Montgomery County, or shouldn't it? If it should include ONLY costs DIRECTLY paid by Montgomery County, it shouldn't include drive time. It should, however, include the costs of responding to car crashes, which is directly paid by Montgomery County. |
Are you so invested in your argument that you're going to insist that every $50 million dollar chunk in Montgomery County, of all places, meets these criteria? |
I’m not saying that every 50 million dollars of spending should be evaluated this way. Obviously, this logic wouldn’t apply to something like education spending. But there needs to be some kid of cost benefit comparison to make sure money is not being frivolous spent on things that provide minimal benefit to county. There are lots of things governments are spending money on cost millions of billion of dollars that are completely ineffective from a cost benefit standpoint. |
Lets get real. Some of those 40 deaths are really due to pedestrian stupidity. A few weeks ago, I witnessed several teenagers hot riding and waving their bikes through Bethesda. I see pedestrians regularly cross major streets without really looking out for traffic. I myself regularly j-walk in downtown DC. Simple fact is some pedestrian deaths are due to the stupidity of those pedestrians. |
Ok, so 40 people killed in car crashes every year in Montgomery County is an acceptable number for you. You're good with that. |
For example, highway widening. |
I think that what they are saying is that some of the deaths are just casual suicides, and you can’t plan around those. |
Yes and some of them are too expensive to prevent so it’s a waste of money to try to eliminate them entirely unless a more cost effective solution becomes available. |
"Casual suicide"? Some of the deaths are actual suicides, and yes, you actually can take actions to prevent them. Suicide barriers on bridges, for example. |
This is a childish argument. Society needs to move and we try to keep people safe. To keep EVERYONE safe, we can't use cars and trucks... or bikes... or even horses. Society can't control people who cross the street wearing black at night. Society can't control everyone who drinks and drives. Society can't stop every idiot who speeds, etc. So, yes... in a society with many people and many making bad decisions, people are going to die in accidents. |