Quote:
Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Re the second point, I don't understand. If I'm in my truck, and a car slams into me, and I survive and crash in which I'd have otherwise died because of the increased mass of my truck, how is my survival not a pure offset against the death of the person in the car who hit me (assuming he died because he hit an SUV as opposed to hitting a car). There appears to be a flawed assumption built into your argument that the SUV driver is always the one doing the striking/cauing the accident. Am I wrong on that observation?
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What I'm saying has nothing to do with fault.
Compare two cars crashing into each other with a car crashing into an SUV. Say head-on, but that doesn't matter to illustrate the point.
In the car vs. car scenario there is, say a 25% chance that each occupant dies. In car v. SUV, there's a 50% chance the car passenger dies, but a 20% change the SUV driver dies. So, the SUV driver is better off, himself, because he's reduced his chance of dying in a crash. But, overall, the chances of death (or the overall death rate of crashes) has gone up from 25% to 35%. So, society is worse off.
Introducing fault into the issue gets you nowhere. I'm pretty sure you'll have a tough time finding any studies suggesting at-fault drivers are more (or less) likely to suffer injury or be killed in a crash. (I'd gues they're more likely to be killed, because they aren't around to tell their side of the story, so the blame gets pinned on them).
