The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

338 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
might change with a move to privatization. White makes much
of the fact that
many drivers would choose to patronize roads without low
fatality rates but with other desirable features, such as no speed
limit. There may currently be too few deaths on the highways,
in the sense that consumers in a free market would demonstrate
a preference for higher speeds over fewer deaths. 13
I regard this as a wildly unreasonable speculation. No, it cannot
be ruled out of court on logical grounds alone. It involves no
inner self-contradiction. But it is so radically out of step with all
of our empirical knowledge of how the world works. Why is the
White scenario so unrealistic?
First of all, it is not clear that travel speed per se, always and
at all levels, is causally related to deaths. Obviously, ceteris
paribus, the faster a vehicle moves, the more likely it is to come to
no good end. However, going fast, even ninety miles per hour on
a clear day on a straightaway with no other vehicles within sight
is undoubtedly less dangerous than weaving in and out of heavy
traffic at sixty miles per hour in a thoroughfare designed for
travel at thirty-five miles per hour.
Second, under free enterprise, typically, but rarely if ever
under the careful supervision of the nanny state, it is possible to
have your cake and eat it too. In this case, it is to attain both speed
and safety. It does not much strain the imagination to suppose
that under a free society, there might be some road owners who
would adopt a “fast but safe” policy. For example, they might
place a minimum speed requirement on their customers of, say,
ninety miles per hour, 14 charge more for this privilege, but keep
large distances between cars. As long as the elasticity of speed
13White, “Comment on Block,” p. 2.
14If it were a three-lane highway, the “slow” lane might be obliged to
travel at 90 mph, the medium lane at 110 and the fast lane at 130.