[toomuchtodo]

If this doesn’t provide evidence for funding the install of RWSL at that intersection, I don’t know what does. What would’ve been the cost of loss of life and both airframes? Tens of millions at a minimum.

Edit: thank you for correcting my damages estimate, I was off by at least an order of magnitude.

[sixQuarks]

Each plane costs more than $150 million, plus at least 300 lives could have been lost. Damages probably close to a billion at least

[echelon]

Each human life is worth approximately $10 million [1], so you're in the right ballpark.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

[IncRnd]

$10 million is not what is stated at your link.

"In Western countries and other liberal democracies, estimates for the value of a statistical life typically range from US$1 million—US$10 million; for example, the United States FEMA estimated the value of a statistical life at US$7.5 million in 2020." [1]

That's also not the meaning of Value of Life, which is a statistical evaluation. On a commercial plane there are almost certainly multiple people whose individual Value of Life projections exceed $10 million.

In many other cases, the value of life calculation for the very pilots of a commercial flight is less than $10 million.

This all goes to show that this calculation is not for what "each human life is worth". This is a statistical evaluation for determining what would need to be paid to an individual to engage in a dangerous activity or to be paid to a survivor after a person dies from an activity. When someone decides to work at a 7-11 in a crime-ridden area for a greater pay compared to a 7-11 in a safe family area, they perform a type of Value of Life calculation.

[1] From the first section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

[ddulaney]

The VSL used in this case is $11.8 million in 2021, the most recent year it’s been adjusted for [0]. $10m is the usual rule-of-thumb. When making policies, governments generally pick a single value. Those “micro” VSL choices are one way governments can arrive at that value [1], but it’s certainly not the only way — economists have developed a bunch of different models which have (in some cases) wildly divergent outcomes [2].

But the key takeaway is that, for government policy purposes in the US, all lives are treated as having the same value and that value is about $10 million.

[0]: https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-...

[1]: How this VSL was calculated: https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/ben...

[2]: General VSL calculation methods: https://law.vanderbilt.edu/phd/faculty/w-kip-viscusi/368_Val...

[IncRnd]

The VSL is for the Valuation of a Statistical Life, which is shown at the first link you posted. That's entirely different from saying that all lives are treated as having the same value.

If you follow your link to the actual VSL guidance, you will see that. [1] There is even discussion regarding how advances in data science can be used for subgroup evaluation of VSLs.

[1] https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2021-03/D...

[ddulaney]

I think we’re on the same page here. You are discussing that individual lives are valued at various numbers. I’m pointing out that when deciding whether to implement safety mitigations, the government will in practice use a single value. From the link you posted:

“Prevention of an expected fatality is assigned a single, nationwide value in each year, regardless of the age, income, or other distinct characteristics of the affected population, the mode of travel, or the nature of the risk.”

I think reasonable people can disagree on whether it ever makes sense to use multiple different VSLs for different types of person. I happen to think that those kind of adjustments do more harm than good. But it’s all (literally) academic — actual policy is set based on a single VSL.