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The safety features are worth millions of crashes prevented and thousands of lives saved, making them remarkably cost-effective.
Capping the luxury features and size of passenger vehicles would do a lot more to bring down costs than removing safety features.
Generally true politically. But these are questions that need to be asked.
Yes, it’s tempting to say, “a human life is priceless, no price to save a life is too high.” But there are an infinite number of ways dollars can be spent to save lives. And by making cars more expensive, that puts less money in people’s pockets to pay for healthcare, quality nutrition, etc.
What if someone invented a miraculous but expensive safety device? Imagine if someone invented a device that decreased traffic deaths by 95%, but at the cost of $250k per vehicle. We would make vehicles incredibly safe, but at the cost of completely shutting working people out from vehicle ownership. Would it still be worth it? There will always be some point where safety just isn’t worth the cost. Not because we don’t care about human life, but simply because there are many potential ways for us to spend money to enhance human safety and well-being.
These were evaluated on a cost-effectiveness basis before being mandated. They are cheap and work.
What makes vehicles expensive is that its much more profitable to sell a huge luxury vehicle instead of a mid-sized sedan. So automakers build giant trucks with fancy interiors instead of cars the typical person can buy new.