
Should Law Subsidize Driving? - mlinksva
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3345366
======
dexen
_> A century ago, captains of industry and their allies in government

>launched a social experiment in urban America:

>the abandonment of mass transit in favor of a new personal technology, the
private automobile._

Way to start with a false premise. Before the automobile took over,
overwhelming majority of traffic - both personal and commercial - was either
by foot, on horseback, or on a horse drawn carriage. There's a reason
"horseless carriage" is how the early cars were used, perceived, and
legislated.

"Mass transit" was a limited thing mostly between cities - train and horse
carriages, and in very limited numbers as inner city trams and metro. Going
both by historical accounts, and by period photos, a tram or metro were _not_
the default commute mode for most of workers.

If anything, the mass transit - tram and bus - exploded in range and
popularity thanks to the availability of cheap technologies popularized by the
car.

~~~
pjc50
Could you be clearer about what kind of time frame and locality you're talking
about here?

> tram and bus - exploded in range and popularity thanks to the availability
> of cheap technologies popularized by the car.

A lot of people would argue the opposite, see e.g. the alleged GM "streetcar
conspiracy". That was in the postwar timeframe when personal car ownership and
transitless suburbs took off.

~~~
dexen
_> Could you be clearer about what kind of time frame and locality you're
talking about here?_

I'm thinking of the "A century ago" period, in concert with what the article
starts off with. My perspective is primarily european cities of 200'000+ [1]
inhabitants during the early XX century, as that's what I'm most familiar
with.

Going by the two cities I spent my formative years in, the local mass
transportation networks - tram and bus - were built out to great effect as
part of, and thanks to, the general city rebuild spurred by the improving car
availability and use in early (pre-war) XX century.

 _> GM's "streetcar conspiracy"_

Salient point, however that happened decades after both the automobile
traffic, and the modern mass transport were built out, established, and went
through decades of use.

[1] back then that was a sizeable city

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Mvandenbergh
I haven't read all 102 pages, but essentially the reasons that the author says
US law subsidises driving are:

Killing someone in a car accident is not taken terribly seriously, especially
is exacerbating factors such as alcohol consumptions are not present.
Exacerbating factors other than alcohol are not taken seriously. This is at
odds with the legal approach to accidental killing in virtually all other
circumstances.

"Criminal law takes both unofficial and official cognizance of the inherent
difficulty of driving safely. First, car crashes are rarely prosecuted as
crimes even when fatalities result. Second, when they are, they often come
within a special, lesser form of manslaughter created by law for instances
where the instrument of unintended death is a fast, multi-ton machine rather
than, say, a negligently thrown lawn dart"

Speed limits and other legal constraints on dangerous driving are chronically
underenforced.

Roads and signal timings are engineered to maximise traffic flow, including
the timing of pedestrian crossings in such a way that they can be dangerous
for people with mobility restrictions. This is often driven by federal
standards - so not law necessarily in this case but similar.

Crossing the street other than at a crosswalk is illegal in many places.

Federal funding for state energy conservation required the adoption of rules
allowing turns on red, despite the fact that we know this leads to higher
injury and death rates for vulnerable people.

In many places, the price of driving on streets is set at zero by law (local
government can't charge congestion prices). It is actually quite rare to make
such an intervention prohibiting charging for the use of a scarce and
congested asset.

Land use law across the US favours private cars:

Municipal law in many places sets prices for street parking at zero outside
urban centres. In some places state law limits municipal control of parking
charging.

In many places zoning codes require the building of large amounts of parking
which raises the cost of new building. It especially raises the costs of
building new apartments and drives them farther apart. Effectively this makes
it almost impossible to develop walkable centres - you're going to be paying
for parking anyway and because of the distances created by these planning laws
you will need a car. The density reducing effect of requiring so much parking
makes bus systems either totally non-viable or so marginal in terms of service
frequency that only the desperate use them. Services only used by poor people
are never going to get any attention.

Emissions regulations focus on tailpipe emissions and neglect brake pad and
tyre particulates.

~~~
Steltek
> Speed limits and other legal constraints on dangerous driving are
> chronically underenforced.

It's worse than that. My commute features a lot of "bicycle traps" set up by
local PD to catch bikes running red lights but virtually zero "traps" for
rampant car behavior: texting, speeding, failure to yield to pedestrians.

A lot of your other points get Flat Earth style denial from car proponents: I
had someone claim that transit was anti-environment. High density housing
leads to unaffordability and shortages. It's maddening.

------
drtillberg
These subsidies exist because for decades there was no reasonable alternative
to owning and occasionally using a car, and no alternative to a community
allowing car traffic on their streets. Since everyone is (or wants to be) a
driver, and people need to be protected from the externalities created by
driving (e.g., look both ways before crossing to avoid injury) you get the
current system.

If you look at gas taxes, insurance regulation, and toll policies-- the
subsidies aren't going to be rolled back. The unsafe, inefficient, and distant
are protected from the consequences of their actions and choices.

------
tsukurimashou
> children, the poor, and people of color or with disabilities—pay the
> steepest price

I can see why disabled people, children and poor people are paying for this
but how is "people of color" relevant here?

~~~
wongarsu
From what I get from skimming the paper he suggests that America's focus on
cars might be related to the end of segregation, with cars allowing white
people to just decide to live in a neighborhood with few black people.
Effectively the policy shift towards cars enabled a new form of segregation.

Additionally "Experiments have found that motorists yield less often for
people of color." (page 27).

But those are minor tangents in a 100 page rant about laws and enforcement (as
well as victim blaming in traffic accidents)

------
tomohawk
Personal transportation is wildly popular because it has greatly increased the
freedom people have. Any activity that is as widespread is going to have its
downsides.

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matthewfelgate
This modern reinterpretation of blaming the state for cars being the main mode
of transportation in the USA rather than people people choosing cars seems
bizarre.

Is there any evidence of this? People buying and wanting to drive cars seems
largely consumer driven not derived from state enforcement.

~~~
dsign
Consumer choices are made in some context. All things equals, I would rather
have a car. But if society taxes me out of having a car (which it did), then I
would have to sell/scrap my car and find arrangements to live without it.
Luckily for me, that was possible.

I would say that pointing out to the laws that transfer car ownership costs to
other people is a very important piece of information, even if the complete
picture looks more like "Interest groups lobby for regulation that promote car
ownership". It's good business for car makers, traffic insurance, health
insurance, and the medical industry. It's bad for the pockets of low income
people, and generally for everybody's wellbeing. The more concrete data people
have about this, the better their chances to improve things...even if I would
still consider those chances very slim.

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alkonaut
Which laws in particular is it that the author things are subsidizing driving,
that he concludes should be repealed?

~~~
wongarsu
There is a "download PDF" button. The author spends ~95 pages arguing that the
interaction of various laws (or their (lack of) enforcement) create bad
second-order effects. I doubt anyone will be able to summarize that in the
space of a comment.

~~~
alkonaut
I was hoping that the conclusion/solution bits at the end of the PDF would at
least have SOME sort of summary. Reading the introduction and the end
carefully, but skimming the main bits, I'm not even sure whether the laws in
question are e.g. tort law or traffic laws!

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expopinions
Uber is the biggest loser, setting a record for losses of a startup. Silli-con
billionaires have supported these losses (subsidized). Sustained losses are
unsustainable. Uber presently keeps about 40% of ride cost. When uber raises
prices and/or increases uber cut, competition will increase. Autonomous cars
will not solve the problem and are a fantasy solution. I.e., no solution.

~~~
nukeop
Uber's strategy is to eliminate all possibility of competition before raising
prices.

~~~
gear54rus
How would that happen?

~~~
Tepix
Right on. Whenever some other offering enters the market with just slightly
lower prices, I'll switch in a jiffy.

~~~
nukeop
Who can afford to pay for more than 60% of the ride's cost?

~~~
Tepix
The idea is that the subsidies will be reduced eventually and prices go up.
That opens the door for new competitiors to enter the market.

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majewsky
Good morning, Mr. Betteridge.

~~~
gpvos
Subverted in this case: if you read the abstract, you'll see that the expected
answer is "no".

~~~
nicky0
Betteridge's law says that if the title is a question the answer is no.

~~~
gpvos
Usually the article wants you to think it's yes. Not in this case. That's the
subversion. Ah well.

~~~
nicky0
I see.

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tonyvince
> ...and People of color pay the steepest price WTF?

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Annatar
I see that the tin foil hat conspiracy theorists are out in force today,
trying sensationalist headlines in an affort to get people to pay for the
subscription. Doesn't this violate this website's code of conduct or some
such?

Bless the ruined internet where a common plebeian can make nonsensical,
unprovable claims like "In the United States, motor vehicles are now the
leading killer of children and the top producers of greenhouse gases." Not
only is this sensationalist claim impossible to scientifically prove (and
prove repeatably, which is the foremost requirement of the scientific method),
but a single container supertanker generates as much pollution with just one
trip as all the cars in the U. S. in an entire year, but hey!, "details-
schmetails"...

And once again, no technology is discussed.

~~~
matt4077
Here's some Google technology:
[https://goo.gl/images/jUnTNJ](https://goo.gl/images/jUnTNJ)

Traffic Accidents are the leading cause of death from injury among young
people. (Click on the other charts to find the one showing injury being #1
among all deaths in those age groups).

> and prove repeatably, which is the foremost requirement of the scientific
> method

No, nothing needs to be proven repeatedly. Once something is proven, you're
done. Wikipedia: "A proof is sufficient evidence or a sufficient argument for
the truth of a proposition."

Plebeian indeed...

~~~
Annatar
This is not proof Sir, it's just a table. For something to be scientifically
proven, the methodology has to be disclosed and it has to be repeatable,
consistently. No amount of re-inventing the scientific method from first
principles will help you, no matter how much this web site is "Hacker" "News"
(:-)

Plebeian indeed!

