The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Introduction
Most people who read this book will dismiss it as the ravings
of a lunatic. For I advocate the complete, total and
full privatization of all roads, streets, highways,
byways, avenues and other vehicular thoroughfares. And I am
serious about this, deadly serious.
This is so far off the radar of public policy analysis and apart
from the concerns of politicians, pundits, and commentators, that
few people will take it seriously. Do not be one of them. Your
very life may be at stake. For over 40,000 people die on the
nation’s roadways every year (see appendix), and you or a loved
one might one day join this horrid list.
Do not be mislead by the oft made contention that the actual
cause of highway fatalities is speed, drunkenness, vehicle malfunction,
driver error, etc. These are only proximate causes. The
ultimate cause of our dying like flies in traffic accidents is that
those who own and manage these assets supposedly in the name
of the public—the various roads bureaucrats—cannot manage
their way out of the proverbial paper bag. It is they and they
alone who are responsible for this carnage.
This does not mean that were thoroughfares placed in private
hands that the death toll would be zero. It would not. But, at
least, every time the life of someone was tragically snuffed out,
someone in a position to ameliorate these dangerous conditions
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