Risk is something we face in our lives in a daily basis. From the time we roll out of bed to the time we go to sleep every night. We risk slipping in the shower. We risk choking on our breakfast bagel, or burning ourselves on that ultra-hot McD’s coffee. We risk being struck by a car crossing the street. We risk our lives by driving a one to three ton vehicle amongst other one to three ton vehicles whose drivers may or not be properly trained and experienced. We risk drinking, then driving, then being killed or killing others in a traffic accident. We risk giving ourselves cancer or heart disease from our choices (informed or not) with our food and beverage. We risk our very environment and our future by consuming plastics and fossil fuels. Risk, it is something that we usually don’t even think about, as we typically write off the risk as being “unavoidable” or “just something we have to do.”
But do we? Do we HAVE to do some of these things? Are they really unavoidable?
Take driving, for example. The United States STILL has people that refuse to buckle their seat belts. Why? Comfort? Why should YOUR comfort raise the risk that an otherwise minor accident may kill you, and orphan you kids? The U.S. STILL refuses to crack down and make meaningful change when it comes to drinking and driving. Despite the fines, despite the saturation patrols, despite the advertising campaigns, we accept the risk that some people will drive to a bar, slam a few back, than drive home. Right next to us, behinds us, and inevitably in front of the rest of us sober drivers. And our families. Why do we accept that risk? We have the tools, the tech, and the legal process to make sure that no one drives drunk, or at least a lot less than they do now. One drink, one drink is all it should take for the keys to not get into your hand. We STILL insist on speeding, despite knowing that speed is a threat multiplier on the road. An accident that is survivable at 55 mph (if you have your seatbelt on) can be deadly at 85 mph.
I know. Freedom. ‘Murica. Taking risks is my right.
Except that really, it isn’t. If your risk taking infringes on the health, safety, and general welfare of the rest of us? If it’s a drag on the national economy, if it creates billions of dollars in wasteful health care spending, is it a right? I don’t recall seeing a right to take any risk you want in the Constitution.
It needs to come down to managing risks, and deciding who should manage those risks where society as a whole is impacted. Lighting up a grill in a backyard? Personal risk. Lighting up a grill on an apartment deck? Societal risk. Vehicle use doesn’t really have a personal analog. Every time you get behind the wheel, you are putting part of society at large at risk. Your actions carry weight, weight which can have tremendous impact on people you don’t even know. Keeping your firearm locked in your house carries a certain level of risk. Carrying it in public amplifies that risk, and affects society in different ways.
And there is a deeper, more troubling aspect to how American’s thought process on risk works. We don’t even like to look at the problems. Meaningfully look at them, with research and scholarly dedication to produce actionable results. We don’t study firearms and their impacts on health, when it is obvious that it is a bullet that kills people. We do study vehicle accidents, but yet refuse to act on the results. As Vikas Bajaj states in a 31 March 2018 NYT piece, we have problems doing basic things that could save lives NOW. “In the federal government and most states, there appears to be little interest in or patience for doing the tedious work of identifying and implementing policies and technologies with proven track records of saving lives now, as opposed to sometime in the distant future.” Bajaj states that automatic breaking systems create a 42% reduction in rear-end, injury causing crashes when the systems are installed.
So why are such systems not being installed on every single car on the road in this nation?
Why are we so stubborn to look at the risks we face, analyze them, and mitigate the ones we can? Why, when so many are so easy to lower, and would not drastically reduce our perceived freedoms? Are we lazy? Have we decided that lives are easier to spend that money?
I have been a fan of automation and of getting as many vehicles off the road as soon as possible for years now. Of removing the ability for people to accept risks that they seem unable to consider to lower on their own. While full automation is technically possible, and my gut instinct is to plow ahead, even on this subject we fail. The recent crash of an UBER automated car in Arizona that killed a bicyclist? The bicyclist was likely to blame, a human driver may not have been able to stop in time, either, and the car’s AI may have detected everything in time to take appropriate actions to swerve and avoid the bicyclist. But at what risk to the driver in the car or other nearby vehicles? Did striking the women with her bike have the lowest calculated risk factor for the AI? Regardless of the outcome of that one accident, the fallout from it is evidence of the continuing failure of the U.S.A. to analyze and think about risk within an appropriate framework. Bajaj points out that Arizona had a back of the room deal with autonomous vehicle manufacturers to welcome them to their state for testing – without the basic risk assessments that should have proceeded such a move. At the very least, stopping to consider how pedestrians and others on our roads who might not be surround by thousands of pounds of metal might interact with cars whose drivers no longer need to be on the wheel.
Risk. We live with it every day. And we also ignore simply, easy ways to mitigate or eliminate it.
Why?