Glenn C. Blomquist - Böcker

Decisions twenty years ago during the fIrst generation of modern traffIc safety policymaking were easier than today. Afterall, the mandate for specifIc mandatory motor vehicle safety standards was dermed rather clearly during legislative hearings. Since the initial standards, decisions have been based on the more general guidelines of "practicality" and avoiding "unreasonable risks. " Now, with more diffIcult decisions pending, the demand for analysis is greater. My purpose in writing this book is to promote second generation policymaking in traffic safety. The dominant theme is that an "individual net benefIt approach" is useful in the design, evaluation and improvement of traffic safety policy. Hopefully, this book provides some guidance for today's tougher decisions. Evaluative review of modern traffic safety policy, especially automobile safety standards, yields several results. The technological approach, the basis for the 1966 legislation, is shown to produce mistakes. Benefits are overestimated and endangerment of nonoccupants is ignored. The risk homeostatic approach, the devil's idea to some in the safety community, is shown to be a limiting case of the more general individual net benefIt approach. Rationality and competency in travelers' safety decisions are reviewed in a broad context. Evidence beyond the realm of behavioral ix x The Regulation of Motor Vehicle and Traffic Safety psychology indicates considerable, albeit imperfect, competency in traffic safety decisions. Conventional benefit-cost analysis is critiqued. Existing studies of passive restraints are shown to overestimate net benefits because travelers' responses and costs are ignored.

Measurements of individual benefits of different health and medical interventions are fundamental for prioritizing among different alternative uses of resources in the healthcare sector. While psychometric measures do not necessarily provide information sufficient for assigning relative values to different health states, preference-based approaches produce measures that allow comparisons of such values. In this volume of the series of Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, entitled Preference Measurement in Health, the papers cover altruism within families, differences in risk attitudes, and estimation of health benefits of food safety. Specific topics include efficiency and altruism, comparison of mother and daughter values of HPV vaccination for daughters, differences in risk attitudes between women and men, how context matters in valuing food safety programs, and valuation of health risks associated with pesticide use.