An open challenge to anyone who supports government regulations.

[SniperFire]

Regulating drunk driving has prevented deaths.

Or do you want to argue that because government made it illegal to drink and drive, more people drink and drive because of government regulation.


Dumb thread.

Nobody drives drunk anymore? When did that happen?

Birfucation logical fallacy won't save you.

'WEDNESDAY, July 25 (HealthDay News) -- State laws that require police officers to immediately suspend a person's license when he or she fails an alcohol breath test save hundreds of lives each year, conclude University of Florida researchers.

In a study published in the August 2007 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, the researchers looked at data on alcohol-related crashes from January 1976 to December 2002, to see how state laws affected fatalities.'

Tough State DWI Laws Save Lives - ABC News

 

[g5000]

Do a study on US railroad safety and see why/when it improved.

It improved when the courts started awarding big settlements to workers who were injured on the job.

Just as evidence has been asked for regulations which saved lives, which I have provided, so you must provide evidence which lawsuits improved railroad safety.

 

[g5000]

Regulations are not designed to protect people from dangerous products, they are designed to limit liability in case someone actually gets hurt. Companies go to court all the time and argue that they are not liable because they met all applicable government regulations, and the government supports them in this.

Do you have evidence of this?

 

[g5000]

Can you prove that without federal standards cars would be more dangerous? Keep in mind that everything that the government has mandated for crash test survivability was developed by auto makers long before the government regulated it.

Just because some guy invented it does not mean it was implemented. Seat belts were invented at the end of the 19th century, and yet more than six decades later, some manufacturers were not installing them.

 

[g5000]

You know of public roads without speed limits?

The Autobahn comes to mind, and that is not the only one.

The Autobahn has quite a few traffic laws.

You are required to have first aid training to get a driver's license in Germany.

It is illegal to tailgate on the Autobahn. Winter tires are compulsory on the Autobahn in the winter.

All these laws are obviously intended to save lives. If there were no laws about winter tires, for example, you can be sure some people would not use them, and therefore fatalities would be higher.

 

[SniperFire]

You know of public roads without speed limits?

The Autobahn comes to mind, and that is not the only one.

The Autobahn has quite a few traffic laws.

You are required to have first aid training to get a driver's license in Germany.

It is illegal to tailgate on the Autobahn. Winter tires are compulsory on the Autobahn in the winter.

All these laws are obviously intended to save lives. If there were no laws about winter tires, for example, you can be sure some people would not use them, and therefore fatalities would be higher.

Imagine if they had no 'regulation' to pass a driver test in Germany.

 

[g5000]

Government regulations save lives on the job | Economic Policy Institute

Post hoc, ero propter hoc - a logical fallacy. The fact that worker fatalities have been declining isn't proof the regulations work.

It most certainly is.

Most companies have become concerned with worker safety because lawsuits are extremely detrimental to the bottom line.

You have been provided evidence that fatalities dropped after regulations forcing companies to change were enacted. No one has presented any other correlative factors to explain the drop in fatalities. So it is not a logical fallacy to state that the regulations were the cause of the drop. But you have committed the fallacy ipse dixit.

Your claim that the fatalities dropped because of fear of lawsuits has not been proven.

So prove it.

 

[g5000]

The Autobahn comes to mind, and that is not the only one.

The Autobahn has quite a few traffic laws.

You are required to have first aid training to get a driver's license in Germany.

It is illegal to tailgate on the Autobahn. Winter tires are compulsory on the Autobahn in the winter.

All these laws are obviously intended to save lives. If there were no laws about winter tires, for example, you can be sure some people would not use them, and therefore fatalities would be higher.

Imagine if they had no 'regulation' to pass a driver test in Germany.

Exactly.

 

[g5000]

About these unsupported claims about lawsuits being the cause of drops in fatalities: Americans have had the ability to sue for a long time, including during all that time fatalities were high.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I am really fracking tired of explaining the facts of life to everyone who thinks regulations are good and lack of regulation kills people. I hereby issue a challenge.

Give me a single real world example of a regulation that has actually prevents deaths. I know there are a lot of idiots that are going to point at all sorts of things, like requiring seat belts in cars, and say that proves their point, but that is not going to cut it here. You need to prove that, without said regulation, people would die because no one would have...

1. Made seat belts in the first place,
2. Actually sell them if someone had made them,
3. Use them if both 1 and 2 were true.
4. That the end result is that no one dies.

Regulations are not designed to protect people from dangerous products, they are designed to limit liability in case someone actually gets hurt. Companies go to court all the time and argue that they are not liable because they met all applicable government regulations, and the government supports them in this. We live in crony capitalist world where the government makes choices about who lives and who dies based on what some number cruncher somewhere claims is for the common good.

A few questions:

1) Will you withdraw your suggestion that people who take you up on your challenge are "idiots"? One can hardly claim to fairly weigh an argument that one has previously deemed idiotic.

2) What sources of authority will you accept? Peer-reviewed academic studies? Government studies? Foreign studies? One must rely on some external authority, unless you expect one of us forum-dwellers to collect, document and analyze a large set of data ourselves in reply to your challenge.

3) How widely are you defining regulation? Historical regulation? Foreign regulation? Economic regulation? Criminal laws (i.e., drug laws that ban deadly drugs)? Excise taxes on deadly products (i.e., on cigarettes)?

4) What standard of proof do you require? Historical proof seems impossible, since you make a counterfactual requirement ("You need to prove that, without said regulation, people would die..."). Mathematical proof seems impossible due to the inherent lack of mathematical rigor. Experimental proof seems unlikely, since very few if any life-and-death regulations are imposed as part of a controlled experiment. Would you then accept statistical or econometric analysis, or is there another discipline which you deem appropriate?

5) Are you asking for a single regulation that saves lives, or proof that all regulations in total save lives? Your original post asks for the former, but the latter is implied in your post #8. The latter seems impossible to prove, since one cannot review all regulations in the history of the world.

6) What is your response to existing arguments that quantify the number of lives saved by regulations, as in the works cited in Orden Jurídico Nacional
or
http://web.iitd.ac.in/~arunku/files/CEL899_2011/Value%20of%20life_Graham.pdf
?


Depending on how you respond to those specifics, I would consider offering the following regulations:

1) Bans on deadly illegal drugs.
2) Taxes and other restrictions on cigarettes
3) Speed limits on public roads
4) Various EPA, OSHA

1. Idiots are people that insist government regulations are responsible for saving lives. Regulations do not save lives anymore than laws against murder and theft prevent either of those. Feel free to take up the challenge to prove that rules actually do things they can't if you want.
2. I will accept any source you want to cite, I just reserve the right to cite other sources to disprove whatever your source proves.
3. Anything you want, rules don't save lives.
4. Like I said, site whatever you want. I reserve the right to find counter arguments to anything you cite though.
5. If you find one example, and prove that that regulation saves lives, I will admit I am wrong. We will not have any further need for discussion unless you try to argue that all regulations save lives.
6. Cost benefit analysis is not proof of lives saved, it is a statistical analysis that examines the cost of a regulation over the projected increase in lives. It is, at best, a statistical nightmare to use those to prove actual saved lies though the numbers do weigh in your favor.

I think you are missing my point though. There is no doubt that some regulations are beneficial, and cost benefit analysis are the best way to measure the potential benefit against the cost. Nonetheless, regulations don't actually save lives because Murphy is still running around fracking with everything.


Now to your examples.

1. Illegal drugs are more available, and less expensive, than they were before they were illegal. I think that illegal drugs are actually the best argument against regulation since it is so easy to prove regulations don't actually accomplish anything simply because they exist.
2. Cigarette use has declined the last fey years, but long term trends are a bit harder to pin down. The percentage of change is rather small, despite massive increases in taxes. I think it would be hard to prove a correlation, much less causation.
3. Automobile fatalities have gone down, but it would harder to attribute that to speed limits than most people realize. Feel free to give it a shot.
4. EPA/OSHA regulations are probably your best bet. It is pretty easy to use them to show the difference between the number of deaths before they existed verses the number afterwards.

Nonetheless, I can easily show that, once we understood the actual dangers of industrial pollution, most companies developed their own standards without government regulation. The larger companies then used the drive for government regulation to drive competition out of the business. Rent seeking doesn't benefit the public, it just benefits the companies that receive government support.

 

[SniperFire]

Windbag, you have backed yourself into an absolutist argument which is indefensible.

Some of your argument has merit, but for you to pretend that laws against driving while intoxicated, for example, do not save lives is quite foolish.

 

[Luissa]

I am really fracking tired of explaining the facts of life to everyone who thinks regulations are good and lack of regulation kills people. I hereby issue a challenge.

Give me a single real world example of a regulation that has actually prevents deaths. I know there are a lot of idiots that are going to point at all sorts of things, like requiring seat belts in cars, and say that proves their point, but that is not going to cut it here. You need to prove that, without said regulation, people would die because no one would have...

1. Made seat belts in the first place,
2. Actually sell them if someone had made them,
3. Use them if both 1 and 2 were true.
4. That the end result is that no one dies.

Regulations are not designed to protect people from dangerous products, they are designed to limit liability in case someone actually gets hurt. Companies go to court all the time and argue that they are not liable because they met all applicable government regulations, and the government supports them in this. We live in crony capitalist world where the government makes choices about who lives and who dies based on what some number cruncher somewhere claims is for the common good.

There are many state regulations in my Job that save people. The fact I have to have training and a license proves that. I could do some damage if I wasn't trained.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

You aren't going to answer my question.

LOL

The answer to your question is regulations do not save lives.

oh i dont know, having a regulation saying we cant have Lead on our kids toys or tooth paste is a good idea.

Or you know making sure our food doesnt have poisons on it and kills you. Like most recently with spinach.

You look like a fool

Just because they are good ideas does not mean they save lives.

Funny that you mentioned lead in toys, since the only company that was found to have lead in their toys is the only company exempted from the new independent laboratory requirements to test their toys for lead. Care to tall me what makes that a good idea, other than the blatant crony capitalism?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Regulating drunk driving has prevented deaths.

Or do you want to argue that because government made it illegal to drink and drive, more people drink and drive because of government regulation.


Dumb thread.

Nobody drives drunk anymore? When did that happen?

Birfucation logical fallacy won't save you.

'WEDNESDAY, July 25 (HealthDay News) -- State laws that require police officers to immediately suspend a person's license when he or she fails an alcohol breath test save hundreds of lives each year, conclude University of Florida researchers.

In a study published in the August 2007 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, the researchers looked at data on alcohol-related crashes from January 1976 to December 2002, to see how state laws affected fatalities.'

Tough State DWI Laws Save Lives - ABC News

Researchers conclude all sorts of things. Funny thing, there are people that drive drunk even with suspended licenses, therefore the law doesn't actually save lives. What it actually does is make people feel good and lets politicians pretend that they are doing something.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Regulations are not designed to protect people from dangerous products, they are designed to limit liability in case someone actually gets hurt. Companies go to court all the time and argue that they are not liable because they met all applicable government regulations, and the government supports them in this.

Do you have evidence of this?

That regulations limit liability? Seriously?

MDE LEAD BASED PAINT REGULATIONS Limited Liability Protections Invalid

 

[SniperFire]

Funny thing, there are people that drive drunk even with suspended licenses, therefore the law doesn't actually save lives. .

Totally devoid of logic. Just because SOME people may drive with suspended licenses and get killed, does not mean all people with suspended licenses get killed driving drunk who elsewise would be on the road, anyways.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Can you prove that without federal standards cars would be more dangerous? Keep in mind that everything that the government has mandated for crash test survivability was developed by auto makers long before the government regulated it.

Just because some guy invented it does not mean it was implemented. Seat belts were invented at the end of the 19th century, and yet more than six decades later, some manufacturers were not installing them.

So? Over 100 years later some people don't use them. Explain that given your assertion that regulations actually save lives.

 

[g5000]

Link.

As early as 1705, doctors knew
that inhaling cotton dust caused breathing problems in mill workers.5

For more than two and a half centuries, they knew.

Scientists now
understand that cotton dust contains toxin-producing bacteria and that long-term exposure
often results in chronic wheezing and other breathing difficulties.6 The resulting disease—
referred to as byssinosis or brown lung disease—impairs lung function and debilitates
affected workers, often forcing them to retire early. Complications arising from the
condition can sometimes be fatal.

Byssinosis was a major problem among textile workers in the United States until OSHA
took action to reduce cotton dust exposure. During the early 1970s, more than 50,000
textile workers suffered from the disease at any given time.7 Depending on the type of
factory they worked in, between 7 and 26 percent of workers were affected.8 In 1978,
OSHA issued its first cotton dust regulation, limiting the concentration of the dust allowed
in textile factory air.

The rule to combat ambient cotton dust proved remarkably effective in improving worker
health. A 1978 Department of Labor report to Congress estimated that there were 51,290
cases of byssinosis in the industry at any given time and estimated that prevalence would
decline to 29,245 after the rule was implemented. But the rule was far more effective than
predicted. A study conducted in 1983 found that there were only 1,710 cases, a 97 percent
decline from just a few years earlier.9

The textile industry had long opposed cotton dust regulation. As government attention to
byssinosis grew during the 1960s and 1970s, industry groups denied the existence of the
disease altogether. During the cotton dust rulemaking process, a spokesman for the
American Textile Manufacturers Institute insisted that cotton dust-related health problems
affected only 1 percent of textile workers, stating “The problem is grossly exaggerated.” He
also claimed that “[t]here has not been a known death from byssinosis,”10 although studies
conducted as early as 1910 conclusively demonstrated that the disease was fatal for some
workers.11 In 1981, shortly after the standard took effect, the American Textile
Manufacturers Institute unsuccessfully sued OSHA, claiming that the costs of the regulation
did not outweigh the benefits.12

Complying with the cotton dust regulation ended up costing much less than expected, and
offered the added benefit of increasing productivity.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

You know of public roads without speed limits?

The Autobahn comes to mind, and that is not the only one.

The Autobahn has quite a few traffic laws.

You are required to have first aid training to get a driver's license in Germany.

It is illegal to tailgate on the Autobahn. Winter tires are compulsory on the Autobahn in the winter.

All these laws are obviously intended to save lives. If there were no laws about winter tires, for example, you can be sure some people would not use them, and therefore fatalities would be higher.

Does any of that change the fact that portions of the Autobahn do not have a speed limit?

Didn't think so.

 

[g5000]

Before government action, an average of 90 fatalities related to
trench cave-ins occurred each year.24
In 1989, OSHA issued the excavation standard, requiring construction sites to use
protective methods in order to stop trenches from caving in. The simplest method of
protection involves digging trenches with sloped walls, which prevents falling earth from
enveloping the workers. Other methods involve creating temporary walls on the trench to
prevent a cave-in or placing steel plates inside the trench to create a protected space for
workers should a cave-in occur.
Since the excavation standard took effect, fatalities related to trench cave-ins have dropped
significantly. An analysis conducted a decade after the rule was enacted found that the
average annual number of deaths from cave-ins had fallen from 90 to 70. Adjusting for a 20
percent increase in construction activity during the time period, this represents a 40
percent decrease in the fatality rate.25 Trenching protection is now standard practice on
construction sites that involve excavation. In comments solicited more than a decade after
the regulation was enacted, industry groups expressed general support for the regulation.26

Same link as above.