From: tarrall@Colorado.EDU (Captain Neon)
Subject: Re: Alternative transportation was Re: Drivers here are better 
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: 12 Dec 92 19:24:13 GMT

woods@claven.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) writes:

>1) Providing reasonable alternatives to driving is a more effective way
>   to encourage people not to drive (drunk or not) than is the deterrent
>   effect of stiffer penalties for DUI

Bullshit.  Alternatives alone, as several people have stated, will not
get 99.9% of the automobile-addicted Americans out of their cars.  They'll
only take "alternative" transportation if the *immediate* cost in time and
money is lower.  If gas is more expensive, parking extremely difficult to
find and expensive, *and* there's cheap and relatively convenient public
transportation, people will use the public transportation.  Otherwise,
they're going to drive.  People are motivated by their pocketbooks and
their watches, and by *immediate* costs and benefits.

>2) One cannot suggest enforcement measures to catch DUI offenders without
>   considering what happens to the innocent non-drunk drivers too.

Yep.  And right now, *innocent* non-drunk drivers - those who HAVE NOT
VIOLATED ANY LAWS while they are driving - are extremely unlikely to
be pulled over.  Police officers have more important things to do than
pull people over randomly to hassle them.  The only time that you'll
get pulled over no matter what you're doing is at roadside sobriety
checkpoints, which only happen during high-risk times like New Year's
Eve and for the innocent non-drunken driver consist of a minute or so
of chatting with a police officer.  No great loss.

>3) There comes a point when the social cost of stiffer penalties and
>   stricter enforcement is higher than the gains due to a stronger
>   deterrent effect.

  Gains due to a stronger deterrent effect:  well, we've had the statistic
explained by Ian as 50% of all automobile fatalities involving alcohol.
This comes out to a few hundred thousand deaths per year - 400,000?
Anyone remember the exact number?  In any case, close to HALF A MILLION
people dying every year.
  Social cost of stiffer penalties - some people are no longer allowed to
drive.  Don't jail them, at least for the first offense; like I said,
it's too darn expensive.  So they can't drive.  What's the social cost?
Sounds like a benefit to me.
  Social cost of stricter enforcement - well, if you presuppose that
stricter laws mean that *more* people get put in jail, then you might
well see high social costs.  I don't.  I've been places where there's
stricter penalties and stricter enforcement - and people DON'T DRIVE
AFTER DRINKING.  If people don't drive after drinking, they don't get
prosecuted and you don't have to worry about the costs of punishing
them.  Pretty neat, hey?

>And I might as well add

>4) There are "other incentives" that might be just as effective at deterring
>   people from driving, and with a lower social cost, than strict law
>   enforcement. I'm speaking of things such as not using taxpayer money
>   to subsidize parking garages, not basing our entire foreign policy
>   on subsidizing the oil industry, etc. Things that would result in
>   people who drive having to pay the real economic cost of it.

Yep.  But if none of these is a complete fix by itself.  We need to use
all the tools we have.  Also, let's get a little more rational here.  Some
things have a chance of making it through our bizarre system of politics
and into action, and some don't, especially in the short term.  No matter
how good an idea it may be in reality, if the voters don't like it, it
won't happen.  Let's do what we can do, right now, to save a few hundred
thousand lives.
						-Robert.-

Newsgroups: boulder.general