November 18, 2009 - 8:24 pm

Government fun with math

I got this press release today from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission:

Results of the Recent Nighttime Seat Belt Patrols
In King County Announced Today

King County, WA - The results are in from the recent Nighttime Click it or Ticket patrols conducted between October 23 and November 8. Law enforcement in King County, wrote 143 seatbelt citations, 16 speeding infractions, four cell phone violations, in addition to one felony warrant and two misdemeanor warrant arrests, and issued 10 uninsured motorists and 17 suspended/revoked license violations.

Statewide, approximately 50 law enforcement agencies and the WSP worked the extra patrols.

In King County, the Auburn, Black Diamond, Kent, Maple Valley, Renton, Sea Tac Police Departments, and the King County Sheriff’s Office participated in the extra emphasis patrols with the support of the South King County Target Zero Traffic Safety Task Force. The extra patrols were funded by a grant from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

Studies show that a person wearing a seatbelt has a 70% better chance of surviving a crash than a non-belted person.

Being the math nerd that I am, I started wondering how much government collects from us for every life saved. I need to make some assumptions in my calculations. But here's what I came up with:

We have had years of intense seat-belt-awareness campaigns. And our state already has one of the highest seat-belt-usage rates in the country. I assume that everyone who is inclined to wear a seat belt already does. Therefore, these patrols only change the behavior in the people who are ticketed.

They issued 143 seatbelt citations, 16 speeding infractions, and four cell phone violations. For my calculations, I am only going to include those tickets. So that's 163 tickets at $124/each. A total of $20,212.

Now, let's assume that every one of those 163 drivers was in the midst of a five mile trip (very conservative on my part - the actual car trip is likely much less than five miles). So that night, they were collectively driving 815 miles.

According to the National Highway Safety Commission, the death rate from automobile accidents is 1.5 per hundred-million miles driven. So for people driving 815 miles in a night, their chance of being killed in a wreck is .0000122

Now, how much does this cost the public? The tickets came to $20,212. I assume (again very conservatively) that the overtime for those 50 law enforcement agencies' patrols comes to $100,000. That's a transfer of money from the public to the government of $120,212. To save .0000122 lives.

So what does work out to for one life?

That means for every life saved, this night-time seat belt emphasis costs the public $9,853,442,622. (That assumes those drivers go from 0% compliance to 100% compliance - and that their accident survival rate goes from 0% to 100% - again, very conservative on my part).

If those ticketed drivers change their behavior every day for a year, it would work out to about $27-million per life saved ($9.853-billion divided by 365).

Now, I know every life is precious - but is it really worth transferring nearly $10-billion (or $27-million) from the public to the government for every life saved?

As I said, I know this is a bit of a nerdly exercise - but I truly believe that we would be better off if every aspect of government was evaluated on a cost-benefit ratio. I don't think there is any way to justify this kind of public expense given the societal benefit.