Most Construction Work Should Relocate To Factories

Manufacturing large modules for a building off-site and then assembling them in a couple of days on site has all sorts of benefits over on site stick built construction. And, this is one area where China is far ahead of the United States in technology and economic organization.

U.S. construction firms, to a great extent, operates like pre-industrial craft shops in the manufacturing industry, that never updated themselves to the modern, maximally automized and optimized factory production model.

Manufacturing large modules for a building off-site in construction projects is significantly cheaper than getting the same work done on site.

The number of workers required is significantly lower without the hurry up and wait of traditional construction projects. You can spread the work over the entire years rather than being limited by weather to the building season, which provides more stable employment with a steady paycheck and regular hours. Workers at a factory can live close to a factory whose location never changes that can be transit accessible, and workers who drive to work can use designated factory employee parker that doesn't disrupt the neighborhood where they are working. Factory workers can use real bathrooms with running water and sinks, instead of porta-potties and sometimes hand sanitizer, and can enjoy pleasant break rooms with refrigerators and microwaves and nice coffee machines and TVs, or go to familiar neighborhood restaurants to have lunch. 

In contrast, in the status quo, most construction work is seasonal, workers work unpredictable long hours when conditions are good and have unpredictable unpaid interruptions due to weather and other onsite project delays associated with sequencing tasks in the complex PERT chart that face all sorts of random interuptions, and workers have to drive to different construction sites on a daily or weekly basis all over the region where their construction firm operates. 

On site workers swamp the neighborhood's publicly available parking on and off for weeks, have to use grotty temporary toilets, often can't wash up with running water, constantly contend with dust, mud, dew, frost, wind, chills, heat, pre-existing electrical and gas lines, darkness, glare, and construction debris at sites whose configurations constantly change even during the course of a single construction project.

For example, many of my Colorado relatives on my father's side, are dry land farmers on the Eastern Plains which occupies them during planting and harvesting season, and then migrate to Front Range cities and mountain towns for construction work much of the rest of the year to make ends meet. not that I'll ever really get why they sink so much multifaceted skill and expensive land, water rights, and equipment into something so uncertain due to fires, droughts, hail, etc. and so unprofitable in all but the best of years.

When you construct a building on site, you need to negotiate new combinations of subcontractors on a project by project basis and have only limited control over how those subcontractors do their jobs, which adds a great deal of administrative and management expense, while impairing quality control, uniform safety rules, and efficiency. In a factory, in contrast, you don't have to renegotiate the organizational structure of the factory for each new project.

Since everyone in a factory is an employee you can impose stricter quality control and safety rules and use workers more efficiently. It is easier to get workers in a factory who smoke to do so in designated areas that spare fellow workers secondary smoke and prevents fire risks,  than it is to enforce that at an on site construction project.

In onsite construction, construction workers are notorious for showing up late or not at all. This isn't simply a matter of construction workers being worse people than other employees. 

An office or factory worker can follow a routine and let habits take over, and when they arrive, what they need to start working will generally naturally and almost automatically be in place be virtue of the structure of the workplace which doesn't change much. And, office and factory workers aren't exposed to the same risks of occupational injuries and illnesses (and the away from work time necessary to treat them), that on site construction workers are on a daily basis.

In contrast, construction workers have to have the bandwidth every day to keep up with a constant barrage of changing schedules at different places with unfamiliar transportation times to get there due to traffic and construction and have to keep track of all the tools, equipment, safety gear and supplies that they need for each particular job. Often, at least somebody has been hurt or get sick from events at some previous job (often different jobs for different workers). And, those construction workers aren't conditioned to the expectation that everything will be on time, because often it isn't and they don't feel the obligation to hold themselves to higher standards. The delays that foster disrespect for exact work times flow, in part, from the fact that project managers need to make sure that everything the workers need before they can do their job from permits, to prior steps in the construction process, to construction waste dumpsters, to portable toilets, to heavy equipment, to parking spaces for worker vehicles, to partial road closures is in place before those workers show up in a process that has to be repeated from scratch with every new job and has numerous potential chokepoints that can stop everything, even before considering weather conditions and supply chain issues that add additional layers of unpredictability to the process.

When you hire general contractors and subcontractors to do on site construction, the workers generally have to pay force and finance their own equipment and tools, sometimes financing it with their own subpar credit or cutting corners on what they buy because they can't afford the best equipment and tools for the job. And, the financing costs of those equipment and those tools, and a profit margin on those purchases, gets passed along to the general contractor and the owner of the land buying the building. But, in a factory, the factory owners can buy the optimal equipment and tools with a much lower financing cost, and any profit margin is collected only once at the factory level rather than at the general contractor level and at each layer of subcontractors right on down to individual employees of subcontractors who supply their own tools and equipment and safety gear.

The predictability of the in-factory part of the construction process also makes it easier to manage the cost and timing involved in procuring the necessary construction materials. Less uncertainty about when you will need construction materials, which is subject to constant rushes and delays in on site construction, means you don't need as much warehouse and construction yard space. But you also have fewer surprises about what you will need when, which allows you to shop for deals better and allows you to avoid paying premium prices when supplies are in the highest demand at particular points in the construction season that the weather allows.

Workplace injuries are an order of magnitude lower and tend to be less serious. The work environment can be better controlled, can be monitored and improved upon over time as the same space is used for one project after another. The work is done in a temperature controlled setting that is dry and has good lighting, where everything is in a familiar place that you don't have to relearn with each new project. The factory is free of the dust, mud, frost, dew, bugs, wind, excessive heat, cold, construction debris, and pre-existing natural gas and electrical lines that are ubiquitous in on site construction. Random strangers and neighbors are much less likely to wander into a factory than a construction site. Only absolutely necessary final assembly work takes place at great heights, or in windy or wet or dark or high glare conditions.

The amount of building material waste is an order of magnitude lower and you can be smarter and more efficient about what you do about the waste that you do generate. For example, it is much easier to pre-sort construction waste into five different kinds of materials each with different recycling options that don't have to be landfilled at a factory than it is to do that on site. And, the temptation to throw out, useable bits of leftover lumber or screws or paint from one job rather than trying to save it and reuse it on another project is much smaller in a factory setting. You can also power your tools and equipment with electricity from a greener, cheaper, and more efficient power grid at a factory, while you frequently have to resort to on site diesel generators in traditional on site construction projects.

The precision and quality control in the final building is greatly increased, which also makes the finished building better at withstanding storms and minor earthquakes which aggravate weaknesses caused by minor imperfections. Concrete components that can be made in the factory can be made in optimal temperature and moisture conditions that aren't dependent upon the whims of the weather which can impair their quality. The materials in the building also aren't exposed to weather that can cause them to be damaged or deteriorate for long periods of time from heat and cold cycles, warping from sun exposure, and moisture during the construction process. 

You can use heavier machinery that is better for getting certain parts of the job done efficiently and well, rather than being limited to what a construction worker can carry. You can also build with heavier building components (e.g. large cast metal or wooden single beams with no subparts that provide weak points) rather than multiple smaller components fitted together on site like smaller girders or pieces of wood that are screwed or nailed together, even if larger building components are better from an engineering and architectural perspective, but aren't used because workers at a construction site can't easily carry them to the places where they need to go (e.g., in the interior of higher stories of multistory buildings).

You don't need to tie up expensive and scarce tall building cranes at the job site for long periods of time. 

The disruption to people in the neighborhood where the building is going up is vastly less because there is so much less on site construction time. You still need to prepare the foundation and water main, sewer, and utility main hookups in advance which can't be done in just the flashy three stories a day of onsite construction of the building itself that is shown in the video. So it isn't quite as instant as it seems. But you are still talking a few weeks instead of a few months or couple of years of disruption to the neighborhood. And, when a stick built mid-rise building looks complete on the outside it is really only about 50% done, while a modular build like this is is more like a week or two away from being ready for occupants to move in since the interior finishes and electrical and mechanical work is mostly already in place.

The inspection and permitting process for the factory made components can be done on a predictable and routine basis in the factory, rather than making every inspection a scheduling chore and bottleneck in the process that has to be coordinated on a job by job basis that requires the inspector to climb all over half-finished buildings often many stories tall, on a construction site at critical points in the course of the project whose timing is hard to predict.

Some of the cost benefits just boil down to economies of scale. It is more efficient to add plumbing and electrical fixtures to a hundred bathrooms on an assembly line at a factory, to have twenty subcontractors add these fixtures to an average of five bathrooms each in two or three buildings each, in a work load often interspersed with a decent share of repair work in existing buildings. But the construction industry in most major metropolitan areas, where about 80% of the U.S. population and where an even larger share of new building construction takes place, is large enough to support building component factories large enough to benefit from these economies of scale.

Also, in the current site built construction paradigm, to get any kind of meaningful construction economies of scale at all, you have to build a lot of nearly identical buildings next to each other in Levittown style residential subdivisions or giant multi-building apartment complexes, or office parks, or industrial parks. But, in a factory build module system, most of the economies of scale happen at the factory, so you can get most the same construction efficiencies of scale by building thirty similar office buildings that are spread out over infill sites spread all over a metropolitan area, as you can from building all thirty office buildings right next to each other in a massive, single use office park. As it happens, that isn't how it is actually done in China, which builds massive apartment complex and office parks and rapidly builds whole new towns and cities from scratch on green fields several times a year. But it could be done that way in the U.S. where the pace of development, even in the fastest growing metropolitan areas, isn't nearly as frenetic, because the U.S. economy is more mature and has already done a lot of the economic development that it needs to do over many decades. The U.S. economy hasn't had the pace of rising demand for new construction that China is experience since the 1950s and 1960s.

The construction industry has been stubbornly unable to materially improve its productivity, cost structure, and quality for decades. It has one of the highest rates of workplace injury and death in the entire economy (neck and neck with farming, fishing, and mining). And construction defeats in the site built construction paradigm are routine, can be expensive to fix, and can lead to long, complicated, and expensive construction defeat litigation.

Greatly increasing the share of construction work that is done in factories could revolutionize the industry in a way that is cheaper, faster, safer, and far less prone to construction defects and the litigation and insurance costs that go with it. It would create a better situation for construction workers, would be more environmentally sound, and would dramatically reduce the impact that construction projects have on the neighborhoods where they a located.

Doing more construction work in factories wouldn't solve the affordable housing problem by itself. In places with soaring housing costs, rising land values are more of a problem than construction costs which are often only a minority of the total cost of housing and have been quite stable over time and between markets compared to land values. But, even if the construction module factories had a higher profit margin, they would still materially reduce the cost of building new housing which would help address the affordable housing problem.

What Makes A Good Snow/Off Road Car Or Truck?

What makes a good snow/off road car or truck?

Of course, learning how to drive in snowy, slippery, and off road conditions (ideally, both in the light and in the dark) matters just as much as the vehicle itself. But the vehicle matters too. 

In order of importance, a good snow/off road car or truck should have these characteristics and/or features:

1. Tires properly inflated for the conditions with lots of tread. Tires let you stop, which is more important that four wheel drive or all wheel drive which lets you go. Chains can partially make up for otherwise insufficient tire tread.

2. Sufficient clearance. Mazda Miatas are horrible and can't even clear a couple of inches of snow on a raised driveway (in common with many sports cars designed for peak speed in dry paved roads). Five inches is usually tolerable. Subarus, at 8.7 inches with a couple of exceptions (e.g., the Impreza) are usually adequate for even off road conditions. Jeeps and Hummers are better. In theory, things like angles of attack and various other measurements of a vehicle's capabilities to handle variously shaped terrain also matter, but in practice, if you have enough ground clearance, everything else will probably work out as well. A decent suspension is also closely related to adequate clearance.

3. Four wheel drive or all wheel drive (four wheel drive is marginally better than all wheel drive, and more than four wheels, for example, on a fire truck or 6x6 or 8x8 wheeled vehicle, can be better). If you can't have either of these, front wheel drive is better than rear wheel drive.

4. An ability to intentionally drive in low gear (not a big factor as almost all vehicles can do this).

5. Traction control and anti-lock brakes. You have to know you have these features, however, as you drive differently with them when you are skidding.

6. Fog lights, if you are driving in blowing snow or fog.

7. More weight, within reason. More weight generally means more traction, but too much weight (e.g., more than ten tons) can make it impossible to cross bridges in rural areas. More weight also usually means less fuel efficiency, which is a problem if you need to travel for long distances between refueling opportunities.

8. Narrower width, within reason. A narrower vehicle can fit through tighter spaces, around tighter corners, and into smaller parking spaces. But if the vehicle is too narrow this can lead to a problematic high center of gravity.

9. Lower center of gravity and height, within reason. Vehicles with a higher center of gravity are more prone to rollover accidents. A vehicle that is taller is more prone to being blown around by high winds and can't pass through narrow underpasses.

10. Traction generating tools on hand in case you are stuck (this could be kitty litter, traction boards, shovels, or other traction generating devices).

11. A full sized spare tire and jack and tire changing tool(s).

12. Greater range with a suitable fuel tank to support it. When you are far from civilization you need to be able to travel further between refueling. Range is a combination of fuel efficiency and the size of your fuel supply.

13. A decent heater and air conditioning that work.

14. Rear window wipers and washers (to clear mud that flys up in your rear window as you drive and falling snow).

15. Straight up and down windows (this reduces the time spent clearing snow from the windows, but reduces fuel efficiency and aerodynamics).

16. A winch. This is the ultimate way to get yourself or a pal unstuck, but is only needed if somebody really screwed up in the first place a long way away from a tow truck.

17. Extra bright headlights, if you are driving in the dark off-road.

18. Metal cages for vulnerable parts. A front metal grill in front of the bumper and metal cages around headlights and any other vulnerable parts of the vehicle can reduce damage if something bumps them, which is more likely in snowy, slippery, and off road driving.

19. A stronger engine. The big concern here is the ability to generate lots of torque in low gears. But this is well down the list of factors that are likely to make a big difference, and this usually comes at the cost of less fuel efficiency which can also be an issue since it limits your range.

20. Heated seats.

There are other things worth mentioning that are good to have including which relate mostly to what you carry and how: 

* a good emergency kit and set of survival supplies (especially water, something to hold water, blankets, food that doesn't have to be cooked, a lighter, a knife, rope, flares, and a good first aid kit);

* good places to stow your camping, biking, skiing, fishing, snow shoeing, or other gear for your outdoor adventures (either inside, or in a truck bed, or in a roof rack or on a trailer for which you have a hitch - covered storage is usually better than uncovered storage, unless you routinely carry oversized and odd sized cargo);

* a place to charge phones and other electronics, or back up charging devices;

* satellite radio for places with no radio channels and no cell service;

* easy to clean upholstery covers and footwell covers.

* extra motor oil, coolant, windshield wash, car fuel, and a stand alone battery jumping machine; and

* a satellite phone.

It is also worth noting that if you have more than one vehicle, only one of them needs to be good in snow and off road conditions in most cases. Your other vehicles don't need to be equally capable unless you truly live in the deep wilderness. 

If you face extreme conditions only infrequently, the best option may be to rent or borrow a vehicle suited for extreme conditions in the rare circumstances when those capabilities are necessary.

Nuclear Power Related Deaths Analyzed

Nuclear power related deaths are a matter of renewed interest because a new nuclear reactor design for a modular mini-reactor was recently approved in the U.S. for the first time that a new nuclear reactor design has been approved in decades.

Like renewables, nuclear power is much better for public safety and the environment than fossil fuels. Among them, costs and operational considerations (nuclear power is desirable because it provides reliable baseline electrical power), and not safety, should be the main consideration. 

Disposing of high level nuclear waste is far more of a political issue and far less of a technical issue than it is perceived to be. Nuclear fuel reprocessing is also an important way to mitigate this concern that is grossly underused in the United States.

Nuclear power is more expensive than natural gas, which has far fewer safety and environmental externalities than coal or oil or biofuels do. But, considering the environmental and safety externalities of natural gas, nuclear power should still be considered a competitive alternative to natural gas (and, in Europe, reliance on Russian natural gas supplies poses national security issues).

Oil has been largely phased out of electricity generation outside Hawaii and Alaska, both of which are prime candidates for conversion to new electrical power sources. Coal is by far the worst way to generate electrical power and is indeed being phased out in the developed world.

The other main way to wean the world of fossil fuels in addition to converting power plants from coal to other fuels in most places and from oil to other fuels in Alaska and Hawaii, is to convert to electric vehicles, especially as the electrical power grid becomes greener. This process is now well underway. 

Nuclear Power Related Deaths

There have been 20 deaths outside the Soviet Union from nuclear power incidents since 1958 (and not more than about 267 for all time outside the Soviet Union).

All of the other nuclear power related deaths are from very early in the industry (two in 1957, one of which was Soviet), and from poor Soviet nuclear power safety standards. There have been about 4,310 nuclear power related deaths from incidents in the Soviet Union (predominantly long term exposure deaths from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster).

There have only been three nuclear power incidents with death counts from a single incident of more than ten: 

(1) The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 in Ukraine during the Soviet era, resulting in about 78 direct deaths and a WHO estimated 4,000 long term exposure related deaths. This was 36 years ago. Fossil fuels kill more people in Europe from pollution every year.

2) The Kyshtym disaster in the Soviet Union causing 50-9000 excess deaths over 32 years, with the most credible estimate of about 200 in 1957. This was sixty-five years ago and just three years after the first commercial nuclear power plant started operations in the Soviet Union. 

(3) The Windscale fire in 1957 in the UK killed 100-240 people. this was one year after the first commercial nuclear power plant started operations in the U.K. 

All other nuclear power incidents for all time have killed about 60 people (33 of which were Soviet, mostly military nuclear submarine related and 27 elsewhere). 

Keep in mind that the nuclear power industry is very young compared to most of the alternatives:

The first time that heat from a nuclear reactor was used to generate electricity was on December 20, 1951 at the Experimental Breeder Reactor I, feeding four light bulbs.

On June 27, 1954, the world's first nuclear power station to generate electricity for a power grid, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, commenced operations in Obninsk, in the Soviet Union. The world's first full scale power station, Calder Hall in the United Kingdom, opened on October 17, 1956. The world's first full scale power station solely devoted to electricity production—Calder Hall was also meant to produce plutonium — the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, United States—was connected to the grid on December 18, 1957.

In the first two disasters (Chernobyl and Kyshtym), the number of deaths is hotly disputed. This mostly due to disputes in how to statistically estimate excess deaths from radiation released in these incidents, mostly from cancer, many decades later (rather like difficulties in estimating deaths from fossil fuel air pollution only several orders of magnitude or more lower).

The non-human plants and animals of greater Chernobyl, have thrived because they are free of humans and that was more harmful to them than the fallout from the disaster in 1986.

In addition, about 62 people have died for all time from excess medical cancer radiation therapy exposures which has saved many thousands if not millions of lives.

Those statistics come from here.

Other Deaths

Deaths in the solar power industry appear to come mostly from construction industry style accidents, similar to those for roofers, and possibly also from the mining and disposal of potentially toxic materials used to make solar panels.

Nuclear compares favorably to renewables in safety, in part, because it generates so much power with so little fuel and so few materials.

There are fossil fuel deaths from air pollution, extraction industry related injuries, injuries related to transporting fossil fuels, toxins and radioactive waste from coal and from oil and gas operations and oil spills, and explosions now and then (e.g. from gas leaks and oil spills).

Life Jackets Save Lives

Most recently a twenty-three month old baby was saved by a life jacket that kept her head above water while she was trapped in an air pocket in an overturned boat.

Everything In Australia Can Kill You

Australia has far more deadly animals and climate conditions than just about anyplace else in the world, at least on a per capita basis.

These include four kinds of deadly snakes, two kinds of deadly jellyfish, disease carrying flying foxes, deadly ticks, spiders and centipedes, poisonous fish, octopuses, and fresh water amoebas, sharks, crocodiles, large flightless birds, hail, and extreme heat.  And, those of just the highlights.

The toxic and deadly fauna can largely be chalked up to extreme Red Queen type evolutionary competition in a hot, arid environment, and a relatively brief period of high density human habitation to exterminate smaller threats.

The people in Australia, on the other hand, are generally quite nice, even though they have funny accents and judges who wear wigs.

Predictable Tragedies (Again)

In nearly every serious regional airline accident during the past 10 years, at least one of the pilots had failed tests of his or her skills multiple times, according to an analysis of federal accident records.

In eight of the nine accidents during that time, which killed 137 people, pilots had a history of failing two or more "check rides," tests by federal or airline inspectors of pilots' ability to fly and respond to emergencies. In the lone case in which pilots didn't have multiple failures since becoming licensed, the co-pilot was fired after the non-fatal crash for falsifying his job application.

Pilots on major airlines and large cargo haulers had failed the tests more than once in only one of the 10 serious accidents in this country over the past 10 years, according to a USA TODAY review of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports.

At a time when fatal aviation accidents have become increasingly rare, regional carriers have had four since 2004, compared with one by a major airline. Regional airlines fly roughly half of all airline flights, carrying about 20% of passengers. . . . Three of the accidents in which pilots had repeatedly failed tests involved a single airline conglomerate, Pinnacle Airlines.

From here.

We don't know precisely how many commercial pilots who have multiple check test failures have managed to keep jobs as commercial pilots from the story. There are about 115,000 people licensed to fly commercial airplanes, about 69,000 pilots and co-pilots employed at airlines that offer scheduled service, and about 8,300 commercial airplanes in service. Simply failing once is not uncommon. Failing many times in a few years is uncommon. Five accidents of any kind for commercial pilots in the time period involved is also incredibly safe (even considering the multiple fatalities that occur in many serious accidents), compared to either general aviation flying or driving a car.

Richard Strock was arrested for drunken driving 18 times before he killed anyone.

In his 19th case, his 63-year-old ex-wife was thrown into the windshield and died. . . .

A Denver Post examination of 195 vehicular homicide-DUI cases since 2005 found that at least 30 percent of the defendants had other drunken-driving cases. Twenty-two drivers had multiple DUI arrests before they killed people.

Three picked up new drunken-driving charges after killing people while under the influence. One was arrested for driving drunk the day after he ran a red light and killed a woman. . . .

The Post analysis of Colorado vehicular homicide-DUI cases also found that:

• Like Strock, many defendants had ignored orders to stop driving. Nearly 40 percent had been arrested for driving with suspended or revoked licenses. Forty-four were driving illegally when they were charged with vehicular homicide. One had been arrested seven times for driving with a suspended license.

• Fifteen percent of the defendants were too young to buy alcohol legally. Three were 16 years old, six were 17, five were 18.

• More than half of those charged with homicide while driving drunk were sentenced to four years or less in prison. . . .

Unlike most states, Colorado has no felony law for the third, fourth or 10th drunken-driving offense. A habitual traffic offender who drives drunk with a revoked license can face up to 18 months in prison on a low-level felony charge.

And there are 53,201 people who have three or more drunken-driving offenses in Colorado, according to Division of Motor Vehicle records provided to The Post. Fifty-one have 10 or more drunken-driving cases in Colorado. . . .In the vehicular homicide-DUI cases The Post examined, Strock was among the 59 drivers who had at least one prior drunken-driving arrest. He had 18, and others had as many as seven.

From here.

The situation in Colorado is very similar to the situation in Ohio summed up in a 2006 report in the Columbus Dispatch:

Ohio toughened its law against repeat drunken drivers two years ago, yet more than 35,000 of them still sit behind the wheel. Columbus prosecutors sometimes lie to the state about motorists who refuse to take Breathalyzer tests, resulting in shorter license suspensions....

In Ohio, 40 percent of traffic fatalities are alcohol-related, and drunken driving is the top killer of people ages 6 to 33, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.... Yet, only a trickle of new felony charges for repeat offenders have been filed since Ohio strengthened the DUI law in 2004....

Ohio has 35,825 motorists with four or more drunken-driving convictions, according to the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles. However, only 52 people have been indicted for felony drunken driving in Franklin County the past two years, according to Common Pleas Court records. The State Highway Patrol, which cites 25,000 drunken drivers a year, has filed only 359 felony DUI charges statewide since the law took effect.

The commercial pilot and drunk driver situations are in some ways totally different. But, both represent situations in which a known risk factor known to the government is associated strongly with tragic "accidents" but the response taken to the risk is insufficient to prevent the accidents from happening.

The single greatest advance that improved data analysis technology and modern social scientific and statistical analysis provide us from a policy perspective is the ability to empirically identify predictable tragedies and to use this data to better prevent those tragedies from happening in the first place.

This still doesn't make drawing the line easy. While the risk of someone with repeat DUI convictions causing a vehicular homicide death is much higher than it is for members of the general public, it is still less than 0.1%. There is a roughly 99.9% chance that someone with multiple DUIs won't kill someone while driving.

The number of people with three DUIs or more on the record is also roughly two and half times the total number of people in prison in the state. Simply locking people away for long prison terms for repeat DUI offenses would be crushingly expensive. But, a large percentage of people convicted of DUI drive despite having suspended or revoked driver's licenses, so in many cases simply revoking a license isn't enough to protect the public. The offense to take more seriously may be driving with a suspended license, or with a DUI suspended license, rather than DUI per se.

Similarly, lots of pilots have failed checkride tests, many more than once, and the vast majority still manage to avoid accidents. Revoking a commercial pilot's license means taking away not just someone's job, but someone's career. And pilots appear to agree that soome FAA examiners impose tougher standards in checkride tests than others.

The regulatory decision making process isn't easy. Excessively tough regulation of a risk factor that rarely actually produces harm imposes a great deal of hardship while producing only modest improvements. But, ignoring risk factors that are highly statistically significant, even if their impact is fairly weak, causes predictable tragedies. One has to find a response to risk factors that effectively reduces the public's risk while at the same time not doing more harm to those impacted than necessary.

I floated one trial balloon at the Sentencing Law and Policy blog as something other than license suspension, prison or expensive vehicle interlocks that can be circumvented by using someone else's car (typos in original corrected):

There are about 23,000 in state prison in Colorado for all offenses combined. Putting everyone in the state in prison for a long term would be cost prohibitive. Imprisoning everyone with multiple DUIs for a year would cost more than $1 billion, and wouldn't necessarily prevent all that much recidivism. It might even increase recidivism by reducing the stability of these people's lives leading to devil may care attitudes and a return to alcohol problems. Colorado prisons are not known for their quality substance abuse program successes.

Merely suspending or revoking licenses wasn't sufficient, however. More than 40% of vehicular homicide drivers with prior DUIs had revoked licenses. Technological restraints on cars only work if someone drive's their own vehicle, and so also might not work.

Colorado does have felony punishments for people who have multiple DUIs and drive with suspended or revoked licenses, although it is the lowest grade felony offense, and those do appear to be the people who pose the highest risk. But, again it is hard to tell how much that would cost and whether it would work.

It might be both more effective and less expensive to require repeat DUI offenders who drive with a suspended or revoked license to have their hands tattooed in a way that indicates that they aren't allowed to be served or sold alcohol, or to drive a car, ever (at their expense), and then to have them report to a probation officer once of month to confirm that it has not been removed. Such a tattoo might also be a legal authorization similar to being on probation or parole for an immediate breathalyzer test without consent at the scene of any traffic stop even if no DUI offense was suspected, and would also provide probable cause for an immediate driving with a revoked license arrest, even if the person was using an alias or fake ID.

A prominent facial tattoo might follow for those who drink and drive again after receiving a hand tattoo, something that would warn anyone allowing the individual to use their car or have a drink, no matter how careless the person negligently entrusting the person with a car or alcoholic drink was, and something that would probably prompt 911 calls from passing drivers.

Tattoos would be a permanent serious sanction. But, this would be far less severe than historical corporal punishments like chopping off the hands of thieves or many lashings or castration, but might have more preventative effect than even moderately long prison sentences. It probably wouldn't be quite a much of a bar to gainful employment or lifetime income as some kind of a felony record or a period of imprisonment in state prison. It would also be theoretically reversible with laser tattoo removal surgery in a case of a miscarriage of justice in the criminal justice process.

While it would be a shaming punishment as well, it would be a rather restrained one at a first tattoo offense level. By avoiding places where alcohol is served and keeping your hands in your pockets or in gloves, someone with a hand tattoo could avoid casual detection. The social shame risks involved also might have more impact on typical DUI offenders than the possibility of some time in prison, particularly for those who have already served brief jail terms and aren't quite as scared by the concept of incarceration, per se.

I'm not really sure how I feel about tattoos as punishment, or for that matter, castration as a punishment for certain offenses. I have a gut reaction that leaves me prone not to trust that approach. Tattoos have been taboo in criminal justice circles since the Nazis used them. But, the current criminal justice system focused on either often ineffectual probation sentences or expensive and still often ineffectual prison sentences for non-violent offenders produces incredible human waste. It is also not clear to me that the psychological impacts of several years spent in prison are any less permanent than a tattoo. It is clear that we need to look outside the box for intermediate alternatives that effectively prevent future offenses and punish at a much lower cost to the public, to the offender, and to dependent upon the offender. For a middle class repeat DUI offender, with a steady job, who drove with a suspended license, a hand tattoo probably looks better than three years in prison despite the fact that it is permanent, and might prevent a repeat offense better too, serving the public in the process.

Soldiers Healthier and Safer

Your odds of dying while in military service aren't that much higher for most military personnel in 2006 than they were in peacetime 1980. Death rates for active duty service members are double what they were in the years immediately prior to the war, largely as a result of hostile action casualties, but are only about 20% higher than they were in the early 1980s, a peace time period.

Three big factors have offset deaths from hostile action in Iraq and Afghanistan: fewer accidents, fewer deaths from illnesses and fewer non-combat or terrorism related homicides.

First, far fewer soldiers are dying in accidents. In absolute terms, the number of accidental deaths in the U.S. military have been consistently about two-thirds lower than they were in the early 1980s. Even adjusting for the fact that the active duty military is a third smaller now than it was in the early 1980s (indeed, the active duty military force is actually smaller than it was on the eve of the 9-11 attacks in 2001, despite the fact that we are fighting two regional wars), the rate of accidental death for soldiers is still consistently down more than 50% from the early 1980s. This probably has to do with a combination of improved safety engineering of military systems and facilities, and improved medical care.

Over the duration of the Iraq War, fewer accidental deaths have saved about 1,800 lives of active duty military service members.

Second, there have been significant reductions in the number of military personnel who die from illnesses, with the rate of deaths from illnesses down about 12%. This is probably due to increased quality of medical care, in part, due to advances in medicine generally.

Over the duration of the Iraq War, fewer deaths from illnesses have saved about 210 lives of active duty military service members.

Third, there has been a significant drop in the number of active duty service members who are victims of criminal (as opposed to terrorism or hostility related) homicides. The homicide victimization rate in 2006 for active duty service members was about two-thirds less than it was in 1980. This coincides with a generally reduction in the U.S. homicide rate (most soldiers spend most of their time in the United States and many live outside military bases), and with improved medical care.

Over the duration of the Iraq War, reduced homicide rates have saved about 80 lives of active duty military service members.

Overall, increased safety, health treatment and reduced homicides of service members have saved about 1,990 lives. Certainly, it is still more dangerous, on average, to be in the military now than it was in peace time, and this is particularly true if you happen to be in the Army or Marines in a military occupational specialty that could put you out and about in Iraq or Afghanistan. But, if you are in the Air Force or Navy, or in some military occupational speciality that keeps you out of the war zone, you are probably safer now than you were in the early 1980s.

Also, contrary to the widespread myth in military analyst circles that reduced accidents are tied to fighting wars, the reduction in accidents has actually been a gradual but persistent one over time, and the accident rate has actually increased during the Iraq War as the pace of operations has stepped up. The same trend has been observed in deaths from illnesses. They have gradually fallen but spiked modestly since the Iraq War began.

The suicide rate of active duty military personnel has remained roughly constant for the entire time period from 1980 to 2006. The suicide rate during the Iraq War has been roughly 18% higher than it was in the four years prior to the Iraq War, resulting in roughly 100 more suicide deaths than would have occurred in the rate of the previous four years has continued. But, the increased suicide rate, because suicide rates are based on quite small raw numbers of suicides each year, exhibit a great deal of variability, and this increase, while probably statistically significant, is just barely statistically significant.

The causes of suicides by service members have been studied at some length, but, as the number show, no one has discovered and implemented a way to meaningfully reduce the incidence of these suicides.

New Warning Symbol

If you see this image you are very swiftly going to be nuclear fried toast. When you see this, it means run like hell for safety. Radiation decreases based on the square of distance. The further you are from the source, the safer you will be.