On May 31, 8:30*am, "Robin" wrote:
That's the whole problem you don't seem to get. *A lot less than £6..7m
could be spent in saving one person in other fields. *Town bypasses
could be just one. *I'm sure others here will come up with other
suggestions.

The DfT "value of a life" figure is around £m2 so it's easy peasey:
light more roads/junctions. *(DfT were always the government leaders on
how to deal with death and injury in cost-benefit analyses because they
have to do them so often for road schemes, speed limits etc)

Cash's approach ("no price is too high....") has of course only one
logical conclusion: regulation and tax rates are increased until *every
penny is being spent on keeping people alive "no matter what". *So, for
example, we would all be compelled to eat the healthiest/cheapest
possible diet to maintain life while also freeing up more money to
comply with regulations and *taxes. *Eg building regulations for cameras
in every room (retrofitted to current stock) and taxes to pay for the
serried ranks of staff in the monitoring units to watch if someone
collapses. Then demolish houses and build flats so people live without
stairs they might fall down (bungalows being of course far to ungreen).
But I am sorry to say I doubt we'd get to the desirable step of
sterilisation for those who cannot understand *the simple concepts of
(i) cost-benefit analysis and (ii) choices.


Actually the consequences of financial foolishness are worse than
that. The NHS has a budget of about £10k per qaly, so each 6.7 million
spent saving one life with sprinklers eats up enough resources to save
670 lives. In that particular example, the money sources are to an
extent different, but when it comes down to household budget and
safety, there are plenty of things that could be done with that
6.7million that would save many more lives.


NT