The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Road Privatization: Rejoinder to Mohring 363
GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY?
Gabriel Roth states as follows:
Statistics compiled by the International Bridge, Tunnel and
Turnpike Association (IBTTA) show the accident rate on roads
operated by its members to be 0.6 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles,
compared to 0.9 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles
on the US interstate system, one of the safest non-commercial
road systems in the world. 21
Were we to extrapolate from this figure, we would conclude
that privatization would reduce traffic fatalities from roughly
42,000 per year to two thirds of that, or to 28,000, a reduction of
14,000. In this calculation, we ascribe to government ownership
one third of all such deaths, or those 14,000 per year. These are
not Nazi type statistics, but they are far from insignificant. 22
However, Roth adds the following to his letter: “Note that the
IBTTA roads are toll roads, not necessarily privately-owned.
Thus, attributing to government ownership one third of the
death toll is an underestimate.”
Perhaps a better way to approximate government culpability
in this regard is to utilize the “two to one” rule. That is, there is a
plethora of evidence attesting to the fact that private enterprise is
twice as efficient as its statist counterpart in providing services
such as garbage collection, fire protection, postal delivery, etc.
,e.g., private sanitation could remove two times more garbage
per dollar spent as its public counterpart. 23 If we use this insight
21Private communication with the author in December of 2002.
22To put this in context, fewer than 3,000 people were murdered in the
World Trade Center tragedy of 9/11/01.
23See on this Roger Ahlbrandt, “Efficiency in the Provision of Fire Services,”
Public Choice 16 (Fall 1973): 1–15; James T. Bennett and Manuel H.
Johnson, “Tax Reduction Without Sacrifice: Private Sector Production of
Public Services,” Public Finance Quarterly 8, no. 4 (October 1980): 363–96;
Roger D. Blair, Paul B. Ginsberg and Ronald J. Vogel, “Blue Cross-Blue