© Sergio Flores/AFP/Getty ImagesGerald Josseph Trujillo Martinez watches a video on his tablet while his mother Ana Gabriela Martinez teaches a class inside their home in Matamoros, Mexico on May 25, 2021
they assess that those deaths that will inevitably result from the policies they support
are worth it in exchange for the benefits those policies provide. This rational cost-benefit analysis, even when not expressed in such explicit or crude terms,
is foundational to public policy debates — except when it comes to COVID, where it has been bizarrely declared off-limits.The quickest and most guaranteed way to save hundreds of thousands of lives with policy changes would be to
ban the use of automobiles, or
severely restrict their usage to those authorized by the state on the ground of essential need (e.g., ambulances or food-delivery vehicles),
or at least lower the nationwide speed limit to 25 mph. Any of those policies would immediately prevent huge numbers of human beings from dying. Each year,
according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC),
"1.35 million people are killed on roadways around the world," while "crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1-54."
Even with seat belts and airbags, a tragic number of life-years are lost given how many young people die or are left permanently and severely disabled by car accidents. Studies over the course of decades have
demonstrated that even
small reductions in speed limits save many lives, while radical reductions — supported by almost nobody — would eliminate most if not all deaths from car crashes.
Comment: See also: