I was almost killed this morning. I stopped at a red light, waited for it to turn green, then proceeded into the intersection. A guy to my right either didn’t see the intersection, tried to run the yellow, or just didn’t care. He blew through the intersection missing me by inches.
In India, I saw few if any traffic lights, and even fewer stop signs. Sounds like it would be chaos leading to deaths, but oddly enough it works. Why? No one trusts intersections, before entering they take it upon themselves to make sure it’s safe. In areas of higher traffic volume they’ll use cops during rush hour.
We, as a society, recognize that traffic intersections are dangerous so we ask the government to regulate them for our protection. We license the drivers, then put up traffic lights, then fine people that fail to obey. Great, now we spend less of our busy lives checking intersections before entering.
Seems like a good plan, but the result is that people develop an undeserved trust. They think that having a red means other people will stop. So when they have a green they happily enter the intersection, confident in the regulatory process that keeps other cars out of their way.
But how safe are our intersections?
Eventually it got bad enough that many cities took action in the form of red light cameras*. Unfortunately these worked a little too well, because they caught people and forced them to pay.
Did people pay? Hell no, they fought them in court eventually finding that they were unconstitutional. So much for regulating intersections. We could easily stop people from exceeding the regulated speed limit, but why don’t we?
This is exactly my point. You have no idea what regulations cost and you can’t even be bothered to look it up. You think that the cost is government spending/meals sold, but you are so unbelievably wrong. You’re pitting libertarians for not understanding the implications, but you’re doing the same thing!
Regulations cost money, and if they are important to you then you should be willing to pay for them, right? So how much are restaurant inspections worth to you?
How much do you suppose that website cost to build and maintain? Think anyone uses it?
*Many people will point out that the cameras were a huge money maker, which goes to show how many people were running red lights.
My question still stands for anyone willing to answer: If you had a choice between going to an unlicensed/uninspected restaurant, or paying more for the licensed/inspected version, which would you choose?
If you want an even better example of libertarian utopia look at Craig’s List. Why on earth would anyone trust a posting on Craig’s List? Who the hell would show up in a dark neighbourhood, with a wad of cash in their pocket, to meet a stranger from the internet? Or better yet, why would you invite the to your home?