On May 29, 2010, at 5:04 AM, paul stenquist wrote: > Most of my writing is, well, frivolous. Not this time. Kids are dying in cars > at an unprecedented rate. As unbelievable as it sounds, those deaths are > often caused by a simple memory lapse. The Times asked me to look into it. > The article appears in tomorrow's paper, and it's up on the web now. > > Our own Ken Waller served as a very valuable resource, and he's quoted in the > article. You'll find it here: > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/automobiles/30HEAT.html?pagewanted=1&ref=automobiles
It's a good article, but let's take a look at it. Let's assume that we could develop a system that would prevent every one of these deaths, and that it could be implemented for $10 per car. Now let's say that there are 30 million cars sold in the US each year (one car per decade per person), that means it would cost $300,000,000 to prevent these deaths. The article says that there are 30 of these deaths per year, so that's $100,000 per life saved. On the surface, that seems like it might be a reasonable cost benefit ratio. I'm certain that the parents of the kids would certainly think so. On the other hand, how many more lives could be saved by applying that third of a billion dollars to a problem that kills far more people every year? > -- Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
