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Trapped Under Trucks

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Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#151

Post by seizethecheese »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #150
acyou wrote: post #145

Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emotional response and by a statistical argument. Of course if we adopt the safety measures then things will be safer. "It's only $XXX. Doesn't that seem like a small amount?" "It's lives we're talking about. Why does money matter?" That's an emotional, illogical…

A statistical life is worth $1-10 million, and this policy costs $127 * 4 million trucks (not counting fuel), so $1.25 million per life the first year and less after that. So it may be a logical argument couched in emotional terms. Perhaps the trucking companies' position is a negotiating tactic too. I don't see why they should have to pay the entire cost of a solution that benefits society more than themselves; that…

Do you really believe that it will cost $125, including installation? It’s probably a large multiple of that. Add in the aerodynamics, and it might not pass the cost/benefit analysis.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#152

Post by rgmerk »

acyou wrote: post #145

Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emotional response and by a statistical argument. Of course if we adopt the safety measures then things will be safer. "It's only $XXX. Doesn't that seem like a small amount?" "It's lives we're talking about. Why does money matter?" That's an emotional, illogical…

We make cost-benefit tradeoffs on regulation all the time.

The EPA uses a value of 7.2 million dollars (2006 dollars) for a life saved [1]:

So if adding guards to trucks would save, say, 50% of the lives lost in underride crashes, that would give you a benefit of 200 * 7.2 million * (inflation adjustment). You'd also want to add in the benefits of reduced non-fatal injuries. But for the purposes of argument, let's imagine the benefits of imposing this regulation are roughly 1 billion dollars a year.

All the costs you're talking about are measurable. It's not that hard to then figure out the costs of imposing the regulation and see whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

And this is one of the simpler cases where there aren't complicating factors like privacy or liberty at stake. You're not requiring truck drivers or trucking companies to change their behaviour. All you're asking them to do is fit a couple of extra pieces of steel to their trailers.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#153

Post by zmgsabst »

sofixa wrote: post #146
acyou wrote: post #145

Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emotional response and by a statistical argument. Of course if we adopt the safety measures then things will be safer. "It's only $XXX. Doesn't that seem like a small amount?" "It's lives we're talking about. Why does money matter?" That's an emotional, illogical…

Am I understanding correctly that your argument is basically "fuck human lives if there's any barrier to making anything even a tad safer that will save some of them"? Where does your logic stop? What about seat belts, how much do they cost to add to vehicles?? Or airbags? Or any of the other safety features that have already been added? Or to go out of cars, infrastructure design - do you know how much more it costs…

Raising shipping costs increases food costs — doubling shipping causes 0.7% inflation.

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring...

There are 13,000,000+ households in the US which face challenges having enough food, at least once during the year.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...

When you propose a change that makes food less efficient to ship, you increase the number of people who struggle to feed their families — and make the challenge worse for those who already are struggling.

What the person you’re replying to is saying is that you have to balance the benefits (fewer truck crashes) against the costs (more hungry people) — and that such a choice isn’t nearly as simple as shallow histrionics, about how we must spend money to save lives!

I think your shallow false dichotomy, rather than engaging with the fact that economics also costs lives and causes human suffering, is exactly the problem.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#154

Post by lstamour »

acyou wrote: post #145

Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emotional response and by a statistical argument. Of course if we adopt the safety measures then things will be safer. "It's only $XXX. Doesn't that seem like a small amount?" "It's lives we're talking about. Why does money matter?" That's an emotional, illogical…

The above is "an emotional, illogical argument". The logical argument is that a burden paid by all is sometimes necessary when there are significant risks. This article goes to many lengths to visualize the risks in examples with and without guards. Admittedly, it doesn't have many counter-examples, nor examples from vehicles other than sedans and older cars. And it cites costs from the 1980s rather than today's costs. But when sedans on the road outnumber trucks, the risk starts to seem equivalent to a flight safety issue where we've known for years that the planes caused fatal injuries but we never addressed it.

If there's a blindness in this article, it's not so much the trucking industry response as it is the question of whether or not this has been implemented anywhere else in the world? https://www.reifflawfirm.com/canadian-and-european-truck-und... suggests that, "in Europe since 1994, front underride guards and side underride guards have been required on large trucks," and that these were strengthened in 2007.

That same page suggests front and side (of truck) collisions with a passenger vehicle are more likely than rear collisions, and that existing US and Canadian protections aren't strong enough.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#155

Post by dubyah »

RandallBrown wrote: post #28
Schnitz wrote: post #7

Europe has mandatory underride guards for this reason since 20+ years ago.

The US has them, but I think it's only on the rear of the trailer. A quick image search shows guards on the sides of European trailers, which would have been helpful in the crash from the article.

The article does talk about US rear underride guards as well, but notes that they were inadequate for many years. I've driven past a hastily draped over fatality from such a collision in the 2000s and have kept a wide berth from trailers since.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#156

Post by sokoloff »

massysett wrote: post #64
CoastalCoder wrote: post #17

There's something I don't understand about this crash in particular: It sounds like Marcos' death is blamed on the actions of the truck driver, as well as the lack of an under-ride bumper. But don't we normally consider drivers responsible for crashing into objects towards which they're travelling? It doesn't sound like a situation where the truck jumped into traffic suddenly from a hidden driveway: > The truck edged…

> But don't we normally consider drivers responsible for crashing into objects towards which they're travelling? No. If you are traveling a highway at posted speed and have a green light, and someone makes a left turn across your path, you’re not responsible if you can’t stop in time. The turning vehicle must yield to all oncoming vehicles close enough to be a hazard. Similarly no, you are not responsible if you hit…

That position is commonly held (and matches common sense), but I think doesn’t match the law.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VvRPzvh-ZOE&t=100 as an example that I recall watching with some outrage.

Less outrageous is the requirement in many jurisdictions for vehicles to avoid collisions when possible and providing a general principle that a vehicle with the right of way but still having the last clear chance to avoid a collision is at fault for failing to do so.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#157

Post by andbberger »

klabb3 wrote: post #103
noisy_boy wrote: post #85

> The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. > They said there’s not enough research to support a government mandate, which would impose huge costs on businesses that operate on thin profit margins. So thin that they can't afford $127 a truck; they are running a no profit charity out of the goodness of their heart and that pittance of an one-time amoun…

I think the article could have done a better job of portraying the side of the industry. The majority cost is probably fuel efficiency. At the end of the article, they describe a new technical solution which is more light weight, involving a polyester mesh and steel, instead of just steel. When you think about it, that’s an argument FOR requiring these regulations early, like back in the 70s when the issue was on the…

redundant pitot tubes also reduce fuel efficiency.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#158

Post by omnicognate »

acyou wrote: post #145

Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emotional response and by a statistical argument. Of course if we adopt the safety measures then things will be safer. "It's only $XXX. Doesn't that seem like a small amount?" "It's lives we're talking about. Why does money matter?" That's an emotional, illogical…

Of course it would be completely impossible to do a cost-benefit analysis taking into account fuel costs [1]. Might as well just give up.

[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2023-04/ANPRM-Si...

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#159

Post by midasuni »

kelnos wrote: post #102
noisy_boy wrote: post #85

> The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. > They said there’s not enough research to support a government mandate, which would impose huge costs on businesses that operate on thin profit margins. So thin that they can't afford $127 a truck; they are running a no profit charity out of the goodness of their heart and that pittance of an one-time amoun…

Seriously. If they aren't even making $127 of profit on a single haul of an individual truck, this business is just kinda pointlessly unsustainable?

Wouod someone reply not buy a truck if it was $127 more?

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#160

Post by midasuni »

katbyte wrote: post #133
JimtheCoder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you need 3 trailers, time to go back to freight trains." Trains can only run on train tracks. The tracks/train stations don't always go close to where the freight needs to go. It is bordering on impossible to build new rail infrastructure to get freight where it needs to go. It takes a lot longer to ship something on a train than on a truck. Add on the fact that transport in general is getting more expensive, and…

Nothing is cheaper or more efficient and green then shipping by rail. We used to have an amazing rail network in NA (eu still does) and we basically have letf it fall into ruin and become a shell of what would constitute a functioning railway. It literally has done everything possible to kill passenger rail and make shipping via rail painful / unreliable. If we had not trucking wouldn’t be the only option and we woul…

The US shifts the same order of magnitude of goods by train as trucks

The EU shifts about 10 times by truck as by train

Rail freight in the US is praiseworthy.

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