Yup. I think that as a culture, we need to think more about the risks we take with other people's lives.
I think this is best demonstrated by the minimum liability insurance required to operate a car. In California, right now, you can drive a car with only $35K in liability insurance... which is crazy. Sure, that will cover most cars, but it won't even cover a moderate injury. Very few people have the assets required to pay for a serious injury, and therefore, the victim is usually under-compensated.
Right now, cars are essentially being subsidized by the people who are getting hurt who get under compensated, because few people have enough liability insurance (or assets) to cover the cost of really hurting someone. If the injuries per mile were better factored into the cost of driving (which could be done by increasing the liability insurance minimum) driving would be a lot more expensive; quite possibly, once you factor in injuries, other, safer forms of transport would start looking practical.
> In California, right now, you can drive a car with only $35K in liability insurance... which is crazy. Sure, that will cover most cars, but it won't even cover a moderate injury. Very few people have the assets required to pay for a serious injury, and therefore, the victim is usually under-compensated.
In Germany, there are regulations for this. The mandatory insurance has a minimum coverage of 7.5M € for injuries, 1.12M € for property damages and 50 k€ for other accident related costs. And yet our car insurances are affordable AND the insurers make really nice profits.
I think this is best demonstrated by the minimum liability insurance required to operate a car. In California, right now, you can drive a car with only $35K in liability insurance... which is crazy. Sure, that will cover most cars, but it won't even cover a moderate injury. Very few people have the assets required to pay for a serious injury, and therefore, the victim is usually under-compensated.
Right now, cars are essentially being subsidized by the people who are getting hurt who get under compensated, because few people have enough liability insurance (or assets) to cover the cost of really hurting someone. If the injuries per mile were better factored into the cost of driving (which could be done by increasing the liability insurance minimum) driving would be a lot more expensive; quite possibly, once you factor in injuries, other, safer forms of transport would start looking practical.