[olalonde]

No, we shouldn't. But the cost of installing bollards and the "harm to society" are two distinct costs. There are about 2.37 pedestrian deaths per billion vehicle miles traveled in America. Even if we assign a generous cost of 5M$ per life lost, that only amounts to a 0.01$ per mile driven, which is probably not enough to cover the cost of installing bollards all over the place.

[slow_typist]

How about 10 bollards per sold car, you can probably get away with $ 1k per bollard (including installation), most cars cost a multiple of 10k. Let‘s see how far that gets you. You can of course modify the bollard tax by car weight or by price.

[michaelmior]

So $10K extra per car? Assuming we're talking the US here where the average price of a new car is under $50K, that's more than a 20% bollard tax.

[slow_typist]

The average price is really that low? Do you have any pointers/data?

[michaelmior]

This Fortune article[0] lists an average as of January of $47,338, I believe based on Kelley Blue Book.

[0] https://fortune.com/2024/02/28/how-expensive-new-used-cars-o...