[ZachS]

I'm not convinced the added safety is worth it.

If you had the choice between getting to your destination in 20 minutes, with a 11.4 in 100,000 chance of dying, or arriving in 25 minutes with a 3 in 100,000 chance, which would you choose?

[dalke]

Assuming you had 40 years remaining in your life, and no one else was in the car with you, and the cost of fire/rescue services is ignored, and the chance of serious long-term injury instead of death is also ignored, then:

Option #1 takes 40 * 365.25 * 24 * 11.4/100000 = 40 hours off your life.

Option #2 takes 40 * 365.25 * 24 * 3 /100000 = 10.5 hours off your life.

Statistically speaking then, option #1 takes off about 30 hours of your life compared to option #2.

In fact, with those numbers you shouldn't take option #1 unless you only expected to live for another 1-2 months.

On the other hand, logging workers have a highest occupational rate of death, at 127.8 per 100,000 full-time workers per year. Assuming 2000 hours per year gives a much fatality rate per hour than what you've posited, so I don't understand your point.

[revelation]

You do realize that a large chunk of road deaths are pedestrians, people that explicitly did not choose to use a car and insted walk to their destination, and that are overwhelmingly killed by people that did choose a car?

I sure hope you do not drive if that is your attitude to safety.

[Dwolb]

This description of the problem is very susceptible to framing. i.e. how you ask this question will determine the response you receive.

A couple of reframes for example:

Would you rather drive a road where you gain 5 minutes and increase your chance of death by 4?

Would you rather drive a road where you lose 25% of your travel time to obstacles and change your chance of dying from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 30,000?

I believe the US government does have guidelines for how much a human life is 'worth' (~10M I had thought...) [0]. It's one of the 'objective' calculations taken into account when analyzing these types of projects.

[0] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

[ronjouch]

Would you say that again while considering your spouse is a travelling salesman? It's not about one-time trips, it's about the aggregated death toll over years or decades.

[ZachS]

Yes, absolutely.

My comment was actually incorrect, since it's 11.4 in 100,000 per year. I think I'd want my spouse to spend 1/5th less time driving for the increase in risk.

[quesera]

5 minutes is that valuable to you?

[glesica]

25 minutes. Actually, no, I would just take the bus and arrive in 30 minutes, but having had spent the time doing something enjoyable rather than driving. :)

[teh]

The article mentions safety for other road participants.

One issue is that going fast often doesn't kill the driver due to modern car safety, but some unsuspecting other road user.

In other words the drivers aren't carrying the risk so they are not the right people to ask whether this is a good trade-off.

[VLM]

Someone can check the math, but in my head I got about ten year crossover to about one sig fig (unless I really messed up it'll be between 2 and 20 years), so it would be far more economical in terms of wasted lifetimes with those made up stats to take the slower route.