Rail Safety and the Value of a Life

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Wed Jun 19, 2013, 08:46 AM - Edit history (2)

Rail Safety and the Value of a Life

U.S. NEWS
June 17, 2013, 10:32 p.m. ET

By TED MANN

Next month, a major bridge over the Schuylkill River just outside Philadelphia will be declared too unsafe for trains to use. Its wood ties are rotten and officials fear the rails, expanding in the summer sun, will pull the trestle apart.
....

On Wednesday the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on railroad safety, including the progress on installing anticrash gear. Overall, the mandate applies to at least 25 U.S. passenger systems carrying nearly 564 million passengers annually.

Central to the debate is the delicate matter of putting a dollar value on saving a life. It is an age-old regulatory predicament—namely, whether or not spending to make one thing safe steers money away from addressing a more serious threat elsewhere.

The effort to calculate the value of lifesaving is a growing area of research among regulators and economists alike, says Michael Livermore of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University's School of Law. The research enables "finer distinctions" about the cost that society is willing to bear to lower risks, he says.

[DetlefK]

1. In general, a human life is valued at several million dollars/euros.

IIRC there's a guideline for disaster-management in Germany, that it's okay to spend up to €1 Million per human life when the government has to conduct a rescue-effort.