13 thoughts on “Let The Airlines Compete On Safety”

  1. I have to admit even I hadn’t considered your sound “let the airlines compete on safety” angle.
    It must be something in human nature, that we feel the important stuff needs government control while the unimportant things can be left to the market.

    1. So, you can have an airline competing on price, not investing in safety, it has a catastrophic incident. After which, company may fail, or it may just be renamed as in ValueJet, but in either case, the owners of the company are almost sure to come out much better off financially than they would have. And if they don’t have a catastrophic incident, they are even farther ahead, so they may as well risk it.

      1. You don’t seem to be making much sense, do you think people will choose to on airlines they suspect are unsafe to save a few dollars? Do you think the cost of a door is going to have a significant impact on ticket prices? How are the owners supposed to “come out much better off financially than they would have” having had one of their planes crash due to lack of safety?

        The real problem is that statistics are a lousy guide when it comes to people on board planes deliberately trying to crash them, too small a sample group, and that, I think, plays against government meddling, which is inevitably reactive rather than proactive, proactive more likely to be an approach taken by the airline businesses.

        1. I’m sorry my comment came out garbled.

          Consider ValueJet Airline, which attracted customers based on ticket price. It had a lousy safety record prior to the Flight 592 crash, but customers generally don’t check airliners safety record when they purchase a ticket. After the crash, ValueJet merged with AirTrans and took its name, and the owners of ValueJet made money and certainly didn’t go to jail. SabreTech, the company which was partly responsible for the crash, was fined an affordable amount, and using the SabreLiner name, the owners continue to make money. My personal bias is that business owners will generally try to do the right thing just out of decency, but in this conversation, we’re talking about financial incentives, and I’m expressing doubt that there are enough financial incentives to keep airliners from using the ValueJet approach to safety.

          1. So what you’re saying is that the legislation in place but ignored didn’t stop the 592 crash, it was ineffective?

            How much Governments legislate for safety and public health in the airline industry or anything else is a can of worms. It’s certain that things like the compulsory wearing of seat belts in cars reduce the death toll from road crashes, but there is a cost, in fact a huge range of costs to the legislation that never enter the ledger and are never measured, and if the wearing of seatbelts is optional, it doesn’t mean people won’t wear them, especially when they judge the risks of not wearing them high.

            In this country it’s compulsory for farm staff to wear helmets on quad bikes, there have been several cases of fines on individual staff in the tens of thousands of dollars, even though there are only about 6 fatalities a year, and for most of those the helmet didn’t or wouldn’t have made any difference. There’s a grain silo where I work with a ladder fixed to it, OSH (occupational safety and health) think it would be better if it weren’t there because people fall off ladders, but what happens if the ladder were removed and someone actually needed to go to the top of the silo (which would inevitably be the case) well, they’d have to go find an extension ladder, lean it against the silo and use that, which would be far less safe than using a ladder that’s securely fixed to the silo. When people fall off ladders it’s almost always because the unsecured ladder moved.
            So whose the better to judge safety in this case, the OSH civil servant, or the guy who actually works the job? And who’s better at measuring the cost of safety? Too many restrictions in the name of safety can certainly cost money, can cost lives, and can take away freedom for no net gain.

      2. Hey bob ….

        Do you drink before you post on here? Or do you just like to bother people with nonsense?

    2. I don’t think it’s human nature at all. I think it’s a result of decades of power entrenchment, and human nature’s natural desire to retain power once it’s been obtained.

      the important stuff needs competition, while the unimportant things can be left to the government.

      1. I think it’s a result of decades of power entrenchment

        More like millennia of power entrenchment, with the same process of increased centralization until things fall over happening over and over again.

        So back to human nature.

      2. “the important stuff needs competition, while the unimportant things can be left to the government”

        I am so stealing that!

    3. “It must be something in human nature, that we feel the important stuff needs government control while the unimportant things can be left to the market.”

      That’s why we have a Department Of Nutrition to provide us with food, while we let private companies issue driving licenses and handle airline security.

      In the real world, you can tell how unimportant people consider something by the level of support for handing it over to the government.

      2. If you think I’m arguing that important stuff should be under the control of government you’re very wrong, what I’m saying is if it hits the headlines most people instinctively want the government to do something about it. Food doesn’t get that coverage unless it goes very wrong.

  2. From the update: This particular event almost falls in the category of the proverbial black swan — an event almost impossible to anticipate due to its rarity.

    They’re not that rare, I saw about 20 while driving over a bridge just an hour ago.

Comments are closed.