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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh
From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Please move over, wait, FORGET the ' - (nf)
Message-ID: <873@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Feb-84 05:45:07 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.873
Posted: Fri Feb 10 05:45:07 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Feb-84 21:45:32 EST
Lines: 99

#R:hou2h:-27900:inmet:3900094:000:5119
inmet!nrh    Feb 10 02:48:00 1984

Hey!  Ease off on the criticism of "libertarian" driving habits.  
There haven't been very many chances to find out what these would
be like, partly for the same reason that it's hard to figure out
what a private postal system would be like.  (Before you all barf
about the imbecility of such a scheme, there were private post
offices in the US -- The American Letter Mail Company, to name
one, which were made illegal by Act of Congress in 1845).  

Before anybody claims that the Government hasn't made private roads
illegal, I'll concede the point -- Government merely forces you to 
pay for existing roads, which it then lets you use for "free".  Since
private road companies would have to compete with public roads, they're
poor investments (most times).  The Federal Government, by the way, has not made
55 the "official" speed limit by the way -- they merely have promised to
deny federal highway funding to states with higher speed limits.

If I had to guess, though, I'd guess that a society with private roads
would probably share standard lane-sizes, have standard billing arrangements
(so that you didn't have to know in advance that you were going to travel
on a particular road), use very new technology, have very
high speed limits (on highways), and have very low 
fatality rates.  Once again, let me defend those points in advance:

	1. standard lane sizes:  Obvious, but just for example -- 
	nobody forces companies to put use RS232 for their telecommunications
	equipment -- they do so because they have a vested interest
	in being able to talk to "everybody".

	2. standard billing arrangements (probably with reciprocity):
	Before you start shouting about how they'd never trust each
	other, consider "cirrus", an arrangement among many banks in 
	the US, so that I can use my BayBanks cash card in any of them
	(I did, too, in New York at Manufacturer Hanover trust).  
	Railroads used to do this (even before Nationalization),
	as a matter of course.

	3. Use very new technology.  Who do you think would rake in 
	the bucks from installing cellular radio along their route?
	Who do you think would benefit from autopilot guidance
	systems (another interesting area for standards).  The
	owners of those roads.  Not to mention the "read the
	electronically-encoded credit card number" dohicky
	that lets you avoid those messy tollbooths.  On private
	roads, tollbooths would go away quickly.  Public ones
	are more cautious -- the tollbooth collectors have votes
	too, and are willing to work REAL HARD for the politician
	who offers not to abolish their jobs.

	4. High speed limits.  The Federal Government won't pay
	me any money unless I lower my speed limit from 150 mph to
	55?  F**k 'em.  This is a LIBERTARIAN society -- the FEDS
	don't have the right to give me any money anyhow.  They
	want to make it illegal for me to allow people to drive that
	fast?  F**K 'em again!  They don't even claim this right 
	in a non-libertarian society.  In fact, in a libertarian 
	society, speed limits would probably
	be set by a cost-benefit balance between insurance costs,
	costs of making the road "safe" at higher speeds, and 
	(most important) the customers and the competition.

	I find the current 55 mile an hour limit ridiculous.  I'd
	pay a few cents extra per mile to drive at (say) 75mph,
	I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.  I really want to be
	protected, though, from tailgators.  Unlike a public
	road, a private road patrol might assure me that 
	tailgaters will be dealt with by banishment, just as
	a private pub may assure me (however discretely) that
	brawling drunks will not be allowed to hang around there.
	On the other hand, a state must regulate these things
	with laws, and by its nature tends to wipe out competition,
	so I have neither the assurance of humane law that appeal
	to private persons brings ("Of COURSE I was driving quickly,
	but I'm  Mario Andretti, I'll pay fines to all the people I 
	scared, and plug your road on my next race"), nor the 
	assurance of appeal that competition brings.

	5.  Low fatality rates.  I'd pay a little extra (or perhaps
	my insurance company would charge me a little less) if I 
	spent all my highway driving on highways that NEVER ALLOWED
	ANYONE WHO'D EVER BEEN CONVICTED (or found guilty, or whatever
	you'd call it when an ARBITRATOR decides who was guilty) 
	OF DRUNKEN DRIVING (on manual, I mean) on their roads.  I'll
	bet the issue of "Consumer Reports" that listed road fatality
	statistics would be a widely read book.

Oh well, this is net.flame, not net.politics, so I'd better close with
some flaming -- I'd much rather zoom along at 100mph knowing that
the road was safe, and the road company ACCOUNTABLE, than trudge
along at 60 (Or 55mph if the troopers are feeling itchy) and know
that organizing a boycott of particular public roads would have NO
impact, that suing the state was a long shot, that the maintainance
budget had likely been raided, and what WAS the name of that bridge
in Conn. that collapsed (thank god, at 2am) as a result of being
Government-maintained.....

See you guys in the whiz lane....