The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Commuting, Day rides, Audax, Incidents, etc.
toomsie
Posts: 193
Joined: 25 Aug 2014, 11:05am

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by toomsie »

toomsie wrote:
kwackers wrote:And who makes sure these cars are safe? Who makes sure they all have standard features rather than arbitrary indicators or lights?

The idea that we'll all be better off because you as a consumer has a choice (albeit a limited choice) is frankly nonsense - why do you think we created the monopolies and mergers commission in 1949?


Good question. Safety and standardization can both be handled in the free market. Safety regulation do not have to be handled by government the free market does a good job without it the need for central control.
In a free market, there can be independent safety inspectors. If you are willing to buy a safe car, you can buy one that has been inspected by one of those companies. A safety inspection company, has an incentive to do a good job , or lose out to a competing safety inspection company. If a car ends up being dangerous that has been certified good, the CEO, owners can be sued by the shareholders and victims. You can even bet that competing safety inspection companies are willing to point out flows in another company inspection for obvious reasons. Who do you think checks that the government’s safety inspection is good, its a law until itself.
Car insurance companies do a good job to incentivize folk to be safe. In most cases they will not insure dangerous vehicles or people who are too much of a liability. I guess this also can include cars with non standard lights.
Standardization has already worked in the free market. HTTP(Hyper Text Terminal Protocol) is not a standard that is enforced by law. But in order for your web servers to communicate with others it needs to communicate in HTTP, your free to use any protocol you choose or build yourself however.
Monopolies in a free market can only happen if the CUSTOMER is happy with the product or service relative to the competition. If everyone buys iphone and not other phones such as Android, it only means customers are happy to buy an iphone.
There was a company who was a monopoly in aluminium production. They used to overcharge for their aluminium. But companies that use aluminium started to find cheaper substitutes. Coca-Cola, started to use glass bottle instead of aluminium. As a result the market forced the aluminium company to reduce its prices to a more acceptable amount.
A government is a monopoly. So how can it create an act that prevent a monopoly, which it is. A monopoly in force. Forces you to pay for products that you do not want or need.
toomsie
Posts: 193
Joined: 25 Aug 2014, 11:05am

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by toomsie »

A company can try to kill competition by buying them up. It is a process that can never succeed. The more a big company buys off competition the more competition appears. It becomes so expensive for the big company to buy of smaller ones that it has to rise its prices thus becomes uncompetitive.

The banks cannot destroy bitcoins( potential competition) by buying them all up, or the bitcoin minors. It will only create deflation in the currency and more investors would hold onto the currency in the hope that they can sell it to the banks at inflated prices some investors might even enter the bitcoin market to do the same thing.
kwackers
Posts: 15643
Joined: 4 Jun 2008, 9:29pm
Location: Warrington

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by kwackers »

toomsie wrote:Good question. Safety and standardization can both be handled in the free market. Safety regulation do not have to be handled by government the free market does a good job without it the need for central control.

That's right. Because without intervention and the setup of the necessary bodies that overview this sort of stuff we'd definitely have seat belts, air bags, crush zones, safety cabins and there'd definitely be pressure to improve the safety of people outside the car as well as those in it.

The free market has time and time again been shown to not work. When it does work in the manner you claim it does so by doing the absolute minimum to get by.
Why would it work any differently? Ford don't make money by fitting expensive safety products to their cars, they make money by fitting the cheapest they can get away with - and without any control it turns out the cheapest is very cheap.

As for people buying the 'safest' car in a free market, that's been shown time and time again to be false. It's particularly false where the safety is those outside the car rather than in it.

Do you seriously believe we'd have safer lorries in London with all the extra tech they're being forced to fit if we left it to the lorry drivers to fork out for them or relied on the goodwill of the manufacturers to add several hundred £££'s worth of extras for free?

Feel free to believe in the utopia of unfettered capitalism without government control. IMO it barely works now so why anyone would think it'll get better is frankly a mystery.
kwackers
Posts: 15643
Joined: 4 Jun 2008, 9:29pm
Location: Warrington

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by kwackers »

toomsie wrote:A company can try to kill competition by buying them up. It is a process that can never succeed. The more a big company buys off competition the more competition appears. It becomes so expensive for the big company to buy of smaller ones that it has to rise its prices thus becomes uncompetitive.

There generally aren't lots of smaller ones, just a few. And you don't need to buy them all up - just a couple. Once you have market share you can use various underhand techniques to put your competitors out of business or reduce their value so low the stockholders would fall over themselves to sell out.
Then of course there's price fixing. When you and your mates control most of the supply of something then a few words during a round of golf and it's all sorted.

Of course these sorts of things are regulated against - and with good reason.

Once you have more money than most countries there's not a lot you can't do. Corporations already apply far too much political pressure on our governments.
Folk are slowly waking up to the reality of what that actually means but personally I think it's almost too late.
Tom Richardson
Posts: 772
Joined: 25 Jun 2007, 1:45pm

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by Tom Richardson »

This is an advertising myth:

toomsie wrote:
If you are willing to buy a safe


'Cars are safe/bicycles are dangerous' - Ive heard that a lot.

The stats show that there's no such thing as a safe car (just like there's no such thing as a car that's good for the environment). Some are less bad than others but cars are absolutely not safe (and absolutely bad for the environment). In fact ROSPA have pointed out that unless you're into base jumping/hang gliding or similar activities that driving a car is the most dangerous thing that most people will do.

You can't buy a car that's safe - manufacturers have to spend a heck of a lot of money on advertising and spin to stop you realising that.
MartinC
Posts: 2127
Joined: 10 May 2007, 6:31pm
Location: Bredon

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by MartinC »

The notion that markets were rational and could control themselves disappeared in a puff of smoke in 2008. Hearing Alan Greenspan et al's arguments reiterated in 2014 is a bit rich. The financial costs of road incidents have been externalised from elsewhere onto society - some regulation is needed to put them back with the people who generate them and derive the benefit from the activity that produces them, there's no way the market will do that.
thirdcrank
Posts: 36776
Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by thirdcrank »

Tom Richardson wrote: ... unless you're into base jumping/hang gliding or similar activities that driving a car is the most dangerous thing that most people will do. ...


Also, such activities present the greatest threats to the participants, rather than the wider public. The fine-sounding casualty reduction approach to road safety only "works" because vulnerable road users tend to avoid interaction with motor traffic or, in the case of children, their parents take the decision for them. The UK has some of the "safest" roads in the world, because people are so frightened of that "safe" environment that many will only use it in a motor vehicle; otherwise, they are morally obliged to tog themselves out in protective clothing to do something as "dangerous" as cycling.

MartinC posted while I was typing. I'd add that all the costs have been transferred to the rest of society.
toomsie
Posts: 193
Joined: 25 Aug 2014, 11:05am

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by toomsie »

kwackers wrote:The free market has time and time again been shown to not work. When it does work in the manner you claim it does so by doing the absolute minimum to get by.
Why would it work any differently? Ford don't make money by fitting expensive safety products to their cars, they make money by fitting the cheapest they can get away with - and without any control it turns out the cheapest is very cheap.


Perhaps then no one cares about safety in cars, that is fine. No one should be forced to pay other others safety equipment or service. If you want safety equipment bad enough then you are willing to pay for it. But don't worry there is little chance that car manufactures can get away with false claims about safety. We live in the information age, information gets around very quickly. We also forget that car insurance and health insurgence companies have vested interests in keeping use safe. In a free market they would be working tirelessly to find innovative way to achieve these goals. Also being sued can be very expensive and unpredictable, all of a sudden being safe( in a free market) can work out cheap.
toomsie
Posts: 193
Joined: 25 Aug 2014, 11:05am

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by toomsie »

MartinC wrote:The notion that markets were rational and could control themselves disappeared in a puff of smoke in 2008. Hearing Alan Greenspan et al's arguments reiterated in 2014 is a bit rich. The financial costs of road incidents have been externalised from elsewhere onto society - some regulation is needed to put them back with the people who generate them and derive the benefit from the activity that produces them, there's no way the market will do that.


I don't think we have a free market capitalism where government controls 50+ of the economy including the money supply, education and healthcare. Banks that get bailouts from government( stolen from the taxpayer) isn't capitalism either, neither is corporation that lobby government to create laws that favor it self at the expense of the competition for bribes and campaign contributions .

You have capitalism when you have voluntary trade.

Socialism is control at gunpoint to benefit the perceived greater good of the country.
kwackers
Posts: 15643
Joined: 4 Jun 2008, 9:29pm
Location: Warrington

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by kwackers »

toomsie wrote:Perhaps then no one cares about safety in cars, that is fine. No one should be forced to pay other others safety equipment or service. If you want safety equipment bad enough then you are willing to pay for it. But don't worry there is little chance that car manufactures can get away with false claims about safety. We live in the information age, information gets around very quickly. We also forget that car insurance and health insurgence companies have vested interests in keeping use safe. In a free market they would be working tirelessly to find innovative way to achieve these goals. Also being sued can be very expensive and unpredictable, all of a sudden being safe( in a free market) can work out cheap.

Sued by whom? For what?

Imagine seat belts didn't exist. You car crashes, you go through the windscreen. Could you then sue because the car manufacturer hadn't provided seat belts?
If so why can't a cyclist who's been hit by a car not sue for the car's lack of automatic braking technology? It's the same thing, it could be fitted but isn't.

Of course as a minority cyclist no car driver is going to pay extra just to make you safer. The current perception is that cyclists bring their demise upon themselves, you'd have little or no chance of suing for lack of safety equipment on a vehicle you'd contributed nothing to the cost of.

Which brings us back to the safety equipment being forced on lorry drivers in London (as an obvious example of what I'm saying) and something I notice you didn't address.
Such equipment would never happen if there wasn't an interventionist policy by government. It wouldn't even have been thought of let alone built and tested.

Your entire premise is that if something isn't safe then the victim can sue. But you fail to realise you can only sue if you can show there's been a drop in standards below what you can reasonably expect. But if there is no real level of safety equipment then your expectations of safety are by definition 'low'.
You also assume you'd stand any chance of success. In a climate where big business pulls the strings with no intervention from government I reckon you'd stand no chance - even if you could afford to take them on and most folk can't.

And it's not just cars. That kite mark electrical devices have stamped on them keeps you safe by defining a very large set of documents as to how things should be made and what safety features they should have.
As another example a lot of counterfeits exist that don't bother and have proved fatal on many occasions - yet you don't hear of anyone suing the Chinese(?) company that makes them, nor even when it's known that they're counterfeit do you see the general public refusing to use them, they're more than happy to save a few quid and use an inferior and less safe product. Those are the standard of products *all* companies would make if they had the chance since they're cheaper to make and have higher returns.

I appreciate it's the 'in' thing to knock the nanny state and government interference but frankly you're being sold a lemon. The handful of examples that are touted around where it's all gone a bit pear shaped are but nothing compared to the protection and rights you've had given to you by such rules and laws.

If you believe that choosing how to spend your cash will give you better rights or make you safer then frankly you're a fool.
toomsie
Posts: 193
Joined: 25 Aug 2014, 11:05am

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by toomsie »

kwackers wrote:Once you have more money than most countries there's not a lot you can't do. Corporations already apply far too much political pressure on our governments.
Folk are slowly waking up to the reality of what that actually means but personally I think it's almost too late.


The problem is the government not corporation. Corporation do not have an army or police force. They can't make up laws that benefit them. They cannot stop you from doing peaceful trade that ain't got no business with them.

As I said earlier a monopoly is not possible in free market capitalism unless the customers are happy. If all the road bike companies colluded and decided to fix prices (high) and as a result created a gap in the market for cheap road bikes. That gap would fill by entrepreneur who is good at spotting gap in the market.
kwackers
Posts: 15643
Joined: 4 Jun 2008, 9:29pm
Location: Warrington

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by kwackers »

toomsie wrote:As I said earlier a monopoly is not possible in free market capitalism unless the customers are happy. If all the road bike companies colluded and decided to fix prices (high) and as a result created a gap in the market for cheap road bikes. That gap would fill by entrepreneur who is good at spotting gap in the market.

That's a very naive view.
Businessmen don't play nicely (there's a reason a large percentage show psychopathic tendencies)

So as far as your new entrepreneur goes they could just buy them out, or they could undercut until they went out of business. More likely they'd put pressure on distribution chains not to stock your entrepreneurs bikes they'd probably also put pressure on their suppliers to prevent the supply of raw materials.
Then they could put pressure on employees, perhaps poach a few key ones and then of course there's always threats - or worse.

None of the above is imaginary. These are techniques that are used today so it's hard to imagine things wouldn't get worse if we removed all controls and simply rely on the free market.

Historically it's never worked so I fail to see why it would work today. As I said above there are reasons governments felt the need to step in and control businesses and corporations.
In reality your average customer actually doesn't really give a monkeys about what the companies are up to behind the scenes. People still drink Starbucks coffee, they still eat at Mc Donalds and they still buy stuff through Amazon despite various revelations.
reohn2
Posts: 45158
Joined: 26 Jun 2009, 8:21pm

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by reohn2 »

My LBS had his Colnago franchise taken off him because others complained his prices were too low,he was making a profit that he was happy with,but they weren't.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
toomsie
Posts: 193
Joined: 25 Aug 2014, 11:05am

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by toomsie »

I will get back to you folks later today.
toomsie
Posts: 193
Joined: 25 Aug 2014, 11:05am

Re: The financial cost/loss of UK Road incidents £15Billion

Post by toomsie »

kwackers wrote:
toomsie wrote:As I said earlier a monopoly is not possible in free market capitalism unless the customers are happy. If all the road bike companies colluded and decided to fix prices (high) and as a result created a gap in the market for cheap road bikes. That gap would fill by entrepreneur who is good at spotting gap in the market.

That's a very naive view.
Businessmen don't play nicely (there's a reason a large percentage show psychopathic tendencies)

So as far as your new entrepreneur goes they could just buy them out, or they could undercut until they went out of business. More likely they'd put pressure on distribution chains not to stock your entrepreneurs bikes they'd probably also put pressure on their suppliers to prevent the supply of raw materials.
Then they could put pressure on employees, perhaps poach a few key ones and then of course there's always threats - or worse.


I am sure some smaller companies get bought up but more will take their place to fill the gap. Buying away competition is a bit like buying all the bikes in a shop in the intention of getting rid of the competition. The quicker you buy those bikes the more turn up in the same shop next week, (where does the shop get all the money to replenish it stock so quickly).
You can fix prices and sell at a loss to kill the competition(= paying to remove competition) .but you can’t do it indefinitely. You will have to rise your prices even more to cover the loses due attempting to kill competition resulting in a bigger gap in the market. That will soon be filled with new companies.
If a company undercuts too much they could have their inventory bought up by savey traders .

I it did not occur to me that businesses can put pressure of supplies not to supply to a competitor out of fear of losing their custom. I guess a bike company could put pressure on shimano not to supply gears and shifters to specific competition then that will only create demand for a bike parts company that has a policy to sell to anyone.
Corporation behave the worst when they use the power of the state to change the market to their favour by lobbying.


kwackers wrote:Historically it's never worked so I fail to see why it would work today. As I said above there are reasons governments felt the need to step in and control businesses and corporations.


Historically America became the richest most successful country because it broke free from European bureaucracy and started of with the smallest government. The founding fathers put into the constitution laws that limit powers of state. Migrants traveled from around the world to make their fortunes in America. Even here in the UK, back in the 50,60.70 it was easier to get because government did not meddle so much in free trade. An average household could afford to have a stay at home mother because the man did not have to pay so much tax.
Post Reply