America says it has got poorer. That's rich

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

And my car's 14 years old.  Even in SC, that's fucked up.

Mine is 11, so hush up.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Not having it break nearly as often?  And safety features are pretty valuable, if you put a dollar figure on your life and do the calculations.  If you value your life at, say, $10 million, then the cost of the risk of dying in a car accident today is about 10 cents per mile.  If you drive 20,000 miles a year, that's $2000 a year.  I can't find the statistics for 1982, but I think a conservative assumption is that the death rate per 100 million miles was triple of that.  So improvement in safety alone makes you $4,000 per year richer.

Incidentally, these kinds of calculations is why I find the logic of giving young drivers cheap old cars to drive, because they'll probably crash then anyway, silly and short-sighted.

Have you compared that to the expected costs from non-fatal and non-injury accidents?  With the cost of body work these days running into an empty shopping cart or scraping a light pole could cost over $2000 to fix.  Double that if they happen to hit whatever said thing is hard enough to set the airbags off.

[DGuller]

Not having it break nearly as often?  And safety features are pretty valuable, if you put a dollar figure on your life and do the calculations.  If you value your life at, say, $10 million, then the cost of the risk of dying in a car accident today is about 10 cents per mile.  If you drive 20,000 miles a year, that's $2000 a year.  I can't find the statistics for 1982, but I think a conservative assumption is that the death rate per 100 million miles was triple of that.  So improvement in safety alone makes you $4,000 per year richer.

There are probably other reasons why death rates are lower other than auto safety features (e.g. behavioral shifts in seatbelt usage and drinking, tougher DUI enforcement) but I won't quibble with the numbers. 

It may also be partially due to infrastructure investments.  Highways with dividing medians are a lot safer than two-lane roads, so as you build more such highways, you lower the death numbers.  How do you account for that in inflation numbers? 

[DGuller]

Not having it break nearly as often?  And safety features are pretty valuable, if you put a dollar figure on your life and do the calculations.  If you value your life at, say, $10 million, then the cost of the risk of dying in a car accident today is about 10 cents per mile.  If you drive 20,000 miles a year, that's $2000 a year.  I can't find the statistics for 1982, but I think a conservative assumption is that the death rate per 100 million miles was triple of that.  So improvement in safety alone makes you $4,000 per year richer.

Incidentally, these kinds of calculations is why I find the logic of giving young drivers cheap old cars to drive, because they'll probably crash then anyway, silly and short-sighted.

Have you compared that to the expected costs from non-fatal and non-injury accidents?  With the cost of body work these days running into an empty shopping cart or scraping a light pole could cost over $2000 to fix.  Double that if they happen to hit whatever said thing is hard enough to set the airbags off.

It's a popular narrative among some, that back in the days cars could take a hit and not cost so much to repair, but I doubt it really amounts to that much in dollar figures.  IIRC, car accident frequency is about 5% per year (though that may be only the frequency of crashes reported to insurance companies).  Even if every single one of those crashes adds an extra $2000 in damages, that's still just $100 a year cost.

[The Minsky Moment]

It may also be partially due to infrastructure investments.  Highways with dividing medians are a lot safer than two-lane roads, so as you build more such highways, you lower the death numbers.  How do you account for that in inflation numbers? 

Dividing medians are not a component of the CPI.
Could impact real GDP calcs though.

[DGuller]

It may also be partially due to infrastructure investments.  Highways with dividing medians are a lot safer than two-lane roads, so as you build more such highways, you lower the death numbers.  How do you account for that in inflation numbers? 

Dividing medians are not a component of the CPI.
Could impact real GDP calcs though.

Obviously not.  But, in effect, you're paying taxes to have the road available for your use.  If the same amount of tax dollars gets you better roads, that's an improvement in the quality of your life.  Does that fly below the radar?

[katmai]

And my car's 14 years old.  Even in SC, that's fucked up.

Mine is 11, so hush up.

Mine is 20 so both of you STFU

[Eddie Teach]

Mine is a Model T.

[Ideologue]

And my car's 14 years old.  Even in SC, that's fucked up.

Mine is 11, so hush up.

Mine is 20 so both of you STFU

That's what happens when you don't shop smart for Blu Rays.

[The Brain]

Mine is a Model T.

Is it old?

[katmai]

And my car's 14 years old.  Even in SC, that's fucked up.

Mine is 11, so hush up.

Mine is 20 so both of you STFU

That's what happens when you don't shop smart for Blu Rays.

It is what happens when you have no credit history and freelance work, so unless i want to pay all in cash I'm SOL.

[Eddie Teach]

Mine is a Model T.

Is it old?

Not by Grumbler's standards.

[The Minsky Moment]

Obviously not.  But, in effect, you're paying taxes to have the road available for your use.  If the same amount of tax dollars gets you better roads, that's an improvement in the quality of your life.  Does that fly below the radar?

Like I said, it could be incorporated into GDP.

But it won't effect real income because even though quality of life may improve, it doesn't effect the purchasing value of your income.  And that is what is being measured here.

[Iormlund]

And my car's 14 years old.  Even in SC, that's fucked up.

Mine is 11, so hush up.

Mine is 20 so both of you STFU

Good Lord. Unless you are broke, get a newer car.

I've only needed electronic aids once, but that once was enough for me to consider them a damned good investment. It's one serious accident I didn't suffer (and neither did my passengers).

[The Brain]

And my car's 14 years old.  Even in SC, that's fucked up.

Mine is 11, so hush up.

Mine is 20 so both of you STFU

That's what happens when you don't shop smart for Blu Rays.

It is what happens when you have no credit history and freelance work, so unless i want to pay all in cash I'm SOL.

Why not buy cash?