[Mee-n-Mac]

Originally Posted by lawn psycho

M&M,
How much does a set of airbags and seat belts cost? They are in every new car on the road today. Compare that to the cost of a sprinkler system and total house cost (and that doesn't even figure in the contents in the house)......

You can be driving down the road at the posted speed limit and have a tire failiure, cross the center line and into an oncoming car. Hopefully the airbags and seat betls gives you that last line of defense. Same thing for house fires. Breakers can fail, connections in the walls overheat, lightening, something in an appliance fails, or any number of items that even the most prudent person would not be able to prevent. You can't base the number soley on fatalities as property damage factor into it as well.

You appear to have taken a stance that "all government regulation is bad." I say that's not the case and would even say there is a high degree of likeliehood that you benefit somewhere in your life from "the government" It's not an all or nothing argument as you seem to want to categorize sprinklers.

In the end, they will be standard.

I've not taken the stance you've said (above) at all. I do worry we are headed into being an ever more restrictive "Nanny State" where my choice to do things will be restricted, not because I infringe on your rights, but rather because some people don't like what I do. But that's not the basis for my objection in this case.

Your statement above, "You can be driving down the road at the posted speed limit and have a tire failiure, cross the center line and into an oncoming car. Hopefully the airbags and seat betls gives you that last line of defense" is the kind of thinking that bothers me. Let me explain why. First there's the idea that somehow blowing a tire will, must, result in you crossing the lane and that there's nothing you can do about it. That just so ... wrong. If a meteor falls from the sky onto the road ahead of me ... I'll allow that as some uncontrollable circumstance but in pretty much all other circumstances I should be expected to remain in control. There's no good reason a blowout* should cause the action you describe. That people do lose control (in this example and most others) is a result of their poor driving skills and it's exactly the kind of thing I had in mind in my prior posts. I've lost tires at far greater than the posted limits and never lost control. Not because I've got some ubber fanatasic car control skillz (Michelle would no doubt confirm this ) but because I didn't panic and I had some idea of what, and what not, to do. I believe "you" can do exactly as well. There's no excuse to do any less. Heck, perhaps APS might help you if needed.

Second, you mention airbags and seatbelts. Airbags are the better corollary to sprinklers. Why ? Because once you have seatbelts, and wear them properly, airbags (at least the main frontal ones) are pretty much redundant. The seatbelt will do it's job (if properly designed) preventing your fleshy parts from hitting the hard parts of the auto. Airbags were invented (and later mandated) because people weren't wearing their seatbelts. Thus you, I and everyone else are nowing pay a few hundred $$s extra for their cars and insurance as a result of those people. $$s for the car, $$ to repair the airbag damage and $$ to pay for the extra theft due to airbags. And that's not to mention those people killed by airbags who would have been just fine with seatbelts (alone). Perhaps you don't mind spending the extra $$ because some people won't wear their seatbelts ... I do. I see no good reason to pay for them given I have the belts.

Which brings me back to sprinklers. Fires in the house are (mainly) due to a few "stupid", preventable reasons. People falls asleep when smoking or are careless in their butt disposal. The use candles next to the drapes. The overload their extension cords that they ran under the rug. The aren't prepared for the typical kitchen grease fire (like we had when I was a kid). But for most of us, who use just a modicum of commonsense and preparedness, smoke detectors do the equivalent of seatbelts. Airbags, and sprinklers, are an uneeded backup. Once in a truely great while they will have some worth but mostly they're there to protect the "stupid" from themselves. I resist spending my $$ to save people who are too lazy or stupid to bother installing or maintaining their smoke detectors. I resist public policies that take the shotgun approach to solving the issue instead of concentrating their efforts on those who are the problem. It's not that "Govt" is bad, it's that "Govt" is a blunt axe when it needs to be a rapier.

Your initial argument was along the lines of "OMG people die in fires ! How dare you oppose "us" from saving them/you". Well I do dare. I dare when "you" stick your hand into my wallet to spend my $$ when I've already done enough. Go concentrate on those people who are the root of most of the problems. I'm willing to live with the remaining small risk of failed breakers and bad wiring (from the 50's ??) and malfunctioning fire breathing appliances (really ???).

As for property damages ... OK so I'm spending my $$ to save the insurance company some $$s ? Again shouldn't this be my decision based on their price to me (hopefully based on truthful loss estimates) ?


*Recall the SUV "accidents" due to tire blowouts some years ago ? One of the car magazones went and replicated the blowouts to see if the vehicle went out of control. The showed that even with hands off the wheel, the much publically anticipated loss of control didn't happen. It was the driver who was the true root cause of the problem. Yet as a result of these "accidents" we now have a mandated Tire Pressure Monitoring System in all new cars. The direct TPMS (now the only allowed system) adds a couple of hundred $$ to the cost of the car and $5 each time a tire is changed. All because some people were too lazy to check their tires once in a great while and paniced when they blew out. Stuff happens, it's your role to deal with it when it does.


I do understand that many items have "safety costs" built into them ... really I do ! There's seemingly no end to the number of single issue people who think their issue is "the one" that needs fixing (with public $$s). Each incremental cost may be small but the effect is cumulative. Thus I think we should be vigilant when each added cost is about to be incurred and be sure that the true, added benefit is worth the $$s paid. I can only hope my "density" isn't preventing me from explaining this clearly.