minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) (07/28/85)
There was a fairly extensive study done in Sweden in the mid 1970's on the costs (and causes) of auto fatalities. It had two parts: 1. an estimate of the total cost to the society as a whole of an auto fatality (the cost to the police and hospitals to clean up the mess, the cost to the government of not collecting in taxes the cost of educating the individual, etc. etc.). The average fatality cost about $50,000. This is paid for by everybody in higher taxes. 2. a study of every fatality in a specific model year of Volvos in Sweden (I think the year was 1975). The study was done jointly by Volvo, the insurance companies, The National Traffic Safety Board, and the people who usually reconstruct airplane crashes. There were 131 fatalities. 129 were not wearing seat belts. (There was also one fire, although nobody could figure out why the car caught fire; Volvo moved the gas tank the next year.) As a result of this study, Sweden passed a mandatory seat belt law. In addition to protecting you in a crash, a good seat belt will support you if you have to swerve your car to avoid an accident, thus preventing accidents as well. Martin Minow decvax!minow
peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/05/85)
Is this skein of messages in response to my "raise insurance premiums for non-seat-belt wearers" posting? If it is, by any chance, could someone mail me a copy of the discussion. We lost quite a bit of news to a bad sys file recently. -- Peter da Silva (the mad Australian) UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076