Ideas: Auto Accidents, AIDS, Contraception and the Pope Oh dear. Long term readers will know that I've long had problems with David Friedman, and what I could call a lack of rigor when it comes to make arguments. He may think he's making something persuasive, but I've noticed a tendency for him to link to a larger article and then effectively challenge people to poke holes at a 15,000 word work.
This is a case in point, although one that is easier to disagree with him on without reading the source material.
He refers to the findings of Sam Peltzman's study that improved regulation on automobiles led to no actual change in road deaths because a higher increase in accident rates cancelled out the improvements mandated by government. The theory being that because of seat belts and so forth, people drive faster and take more risks. The actual abstract reads:
Technological studies imply that annual highway deaths would be 20 percent greater without legally mandated installation of various safety devices on automobiles. However, this literature ignores offsetting effects of nonregulatory demand for safety and driver response to the devices. This article indicates that these offsets are virtually complete, so that regulation has not decreased highway deaths. Time-series (but not cross-section) data imply some saving of auto occupants' lives at the expense of more pedestrian deaths and more nonfatal accidents, a pattern consistent with optimal driver response to regulation.I put the emphasis in there because it and one other fact are key.
Friedman refers to this as a "classic study", it is. It's also 34 years old. The work was published in 1975 using data from the preceeding years.
A fair amount has happened in those years. Cars are intrinsically a lot safer now than they were in 1975, other mandated features over that period include; side impact zones, airbags, rear seatbelts and mandated front and rear seatbelt use, crumple zones, improved car external design to improve pedestrian survivability in an accident and a bunch of other things.
I also happen to know that in many countries, especially those with the most stringent regulation, like the UK, that road traffic deaths are at their lowest in decades, I think the current UK numbers are lower than in the 1930 despite several orders of magnitude more road users and cars.
Friedman then goes on to discuss AIDS and condom use, referring to an article in the "Faith" section of the The Times and an interview with Hardvard's "expert" on AIDS. He might be right, but I have real problems with any argument based on an interview in a newspaper which uses selected quotes rather than actual data to support an argument. I also have problems with arguments which fit a posters political leanings rather than those supported by data. David is a past master at cherry picking data points and arguments to support his stance, and this seems to be another one of them.
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