Traffic records for all bicyclist fatalities occurring in Arizona during the year 2009 were categorized and listed according to manner of collision and assignment of fault. Primary results are that 11 of 25 fatalities (44%) were determined to be the fault of the cyclist; while 14 of 25 (56%) were the fault of a motor vehicle driver. The most common manner of collision is when a driver strikes a cyclist from behind.

Full Report

The full report is available in pdf format:
Manner and Fault in Bicyclist Traffic Fatalities: Arizona 2009
Supporting data: 2009CyclistFatals.xls

Comments or questions may be left here, or contact me.

I was involved in an accident with a bicyclist. He was going west along a main road, I had a stop sign. After stopping and yielding to on-coming traffic I entered the intersection. It was evening and the sun was almost down and he didn’t have any lights on his bike. I crossed and the cyclist slammed in to my passenger door. I was cited for not yielding to on-coming traffic. I challenged it and won the decision based on: The law says motorist are to yield to all on-coming vehicles. In Arizona, bicycles are not defined as vehicles. One of the major points also (as a side note) in this case was the bicyclist didn’t have a light on his bike.

There are a couple of reasons I can think of why this story may be both true and misleading at the same time. The first is that justice and municipal courts often make errors. See Take the Lane for just three examples of justice/muni court decisions reversed on cyclist cases. These courts are not “of record” and there’s really no way to track down the reasoning. A second explanation is the court may have found that the bicycle was required to have been lit at the time of the collision; if so then the motorist would not be responsible for the collision. In my guesstimation, the latter explanation is quite likely, and that the motorist misunderstood the reason for dismissal, after all how can whether or not the cyclist had a light have been important to his case that purportedly revolved around the fact that a bicycle is not a vehicle?

On the other hand, the story may simply be made up, or embellished. In any event the central point bears closer examination.

In Arizona Bicycles are not Vehicles

§28-101 … 57. “Vehicle” means a device in, on or by which a person or property is or may be transported or drawn on a public highway, excluding devices moved by human power or used exclusively on stationary rails or tracks.

So then why do we say things like “bike must follow the same rules…”? It’s because of the applicability statute (As an aside,  NOTE WELL that there is no mention of motor vehicle in the applicability statute):

§28-812 Applicability of traffic laws to bicycle riders

A person riding a bicycle on a roadway or on a shoulder adjoining a roadway is granted all of the rights and is subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this chapter and chapters 4 and 5 of this title, except special rules in this article and except provisions of this chapter and chapters 4 and 5 of this title that by their nature can have no application.

A driver’s duty when entering an intersection is described by

§28-733. Intersection entrance

The driver of a vehicle shall stop in obedience to a stop sign as required by section 28-855 and then proceed with caution yielding to vehicles that are not required to stop and that are within the intersection or are approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard.

Ah ha! Then the anecdote is correct; drivers only need to yield to vehicles, right? And since bicycles are by definition not vehicles then drivers have every right to simple plow into them? Well no, not quite. Like all urban legends both a grain of truth and a huge, gaping flaw, which is the applicability statute also grants bicyclists “all the rights… of a driver of a vehicle”.

So a bicyclist has the right-of-way any time a similarly situated driver of a vehicle would have had the right-of-way.

(see more and other Are Cars Dangerous? stories).

Head-on collision in Paradise Valley leaves pedestrian dead
by Lauren Worthington – Nov. 3, 2010 11:40 AM
The Arizona Republic

A pedestrian is dead and five people are in the hospital after a head-on collision in Paradise Valley. The pedestrian has been identified as Richard Pavese, 62, of Phoenix, police said Wednesday.

About 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, Patrick Nissley, 25, of Paradise Valley was traveling north in the southbound lane of Invergordon Road near East Vista Drive when he struck the corner of a 2003 Lincoln Town Car. Nissley’s car, a white 2009 BMW, glanced off the Lincoln Town Car and drove over the sidewalk, hitting and killing a pedestrian, Paradise Valley police spokesman Alan Laitsch said.

The driver of the Lincoln Town Car, Craig Lesman, 42, of Phoenix, and his passengers — a 61-year-old man and two women, ages 62 and 70 — were transported to Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center and St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.

Nissley was transported to an area hospital in serious condition.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

The circle at Equestrian Trail and Apaloosa Drive will become permanent, and design is underway and a public meeting was held in early October, 2010. See AFN story.

Some good news is indicating the Equestian circle is having the desired effect: “Wilcoxon said that since the temporary roundabout was installed in July 2009, speeding has dropped significantly, from 21.7 percent of vehicles observed by city staff to only 1.7 percent”.

The circle at 36th and Coconino did not enough (or any, according to the news article) support, and so the temporary stuff was removed in September (or maybe October) 2010 and that is that. My own take on this is that since practically no one lives on 36th Street, this circle had no “champion”, and thus it withered.

36th Street, southbound approaching Coconino

I have some concerns in the way it is now striped at the intersection of 36th and Coconino. I am not sure if this is the final striping plan or what.

Striping on 36th Street at Coconino

Southbound; is fairly straightforward:

The bike lane stripes (there are two stripes because the bike lane is set away from the curb) just ends pretty far, maybe 500′ from the intersection. The stripes should be extended most of the way to the intersection and some hash markings placed, see this example from Knox Rd which has a similar layout of bike lane moved away from the curb.

Northbound, however is more complicated:

36th Street Northbound approaching Coconino

Because of the bend in 36th street, a right turn only lane was created — I presume to improve sight lines for traffic emerging from Coconino. This is all well and good but it leaves a bit of a mess for bicyclists who are hoping to use the bike lane.

So, the bike lane ends… the left hand bike lane stripe goes on to become the divider between the through lane, and the newly created right turn only lane.

Legally riding cyclists would or should merge into the through lane, and take the lane (block traffic) until clear of the intersection with Coconino. The through lane is quite clearly narrow; as can be seen in the southbound picture with the garbage truck.

It seems to me that there is enough room to make the through lane wide, by shrinking the right turn only lane which appears to be at least 12 feet wide. In other words move the divider line between the through and right turn lane two feet to the right.

The way it is now is encourages cyclists to ride illegally through the right turn only lane.

According to item at biketempe.org, and thread at azfixed.com…

Bike commuter Jay Fretz was killed in a a collision at the intersection of Alamenda and McClintock Drive in Tempe at approximately 6:30p Monday 5/17/2010.

The story has not received any media coverage at the time (strange?).  abc15 ran a piece 10 days after the crash that said “Investigators said he was hit by a car as he rode through a crosswalk at McClintock and Alameda drives”.

This tragedy comes just one week after an ASU student was killed in another Tempe collision.

2010 Arizona cyclist fatality grid

The folks from T.B.A.G. have erected a ghost bike to commemorate the spot where Jay was killed.

“But there is more to the story, punctuated with lousy timing and heart-wrenching misfortune…” read more.

The investigation

On Oct 14, 2010 the Arizona Republic is reporting the outcome of Tempe Police investigation. The short answer is that because there were some conflict in witness statements regarding the color of the signal, police didn’t want to go forward on the red-light running charge, which would have precipitated a 28-672 misdemeanor criminal charge. Presumably she agreed to plea responsible to speeding in exchange for not perusing those charges.

I would like to read the DR because it seems odd that there were only 3 independent witnesses at that busy intersection at rush hour.

This is a bit slow (almost 5 months?!) for this sort of investigation.

….

Not One More Foundation Announces to all Arizona Cycling Teams, Clubs, Community and Friends a special Fundraising Ride to “Link the Lake” for Jay Fretz. Sat Dec 4th… see more on the arizona brumby’s site.

So the story is that Washington D.C. enacted a law that mandates that anyone who sells food must charge 5 cents for each bag given. Customers can either bring their own bags, or not use a bag, or pay the nickel. There were the usual predictions of the world coming to an end, however the WSJ story claims no major disruptions have occurred, and even some who opposed the tax initially now have changed their minds.

The bags often become floating trash and muck-up the Chesapeake watershed — a negative externality. The tax is designed to cut disposable plastic bag consumption and, it is hoped, plastic bag waterway pollution by 50%.

Here where I live, we have no such bag tax, of course, but it is trendy for grocery retailers to offer customers a nickel credit for each bag brought in that is then reused — a positive incentive.

Looking around here, it is obvious that the (coincidentally) equal positive incentive has had very little impact on bag usage, whereas the incentive in D.C. has had a large impact. I’ve also noticed that initially the grocers offering the incentive volunteered the credit, and now they seem to “forget” or not notice to give the credit unless the customer points it out, and most/many aren’t likely to do that to earn a nickel or a dime.

I’m thinking there must be a lesson here for things like free parking; which is that positive incentives have little impact, while negative incentives have a huge influence on behaviors.

See Pre-prelimary 2009 results.

In other rantings, Arizona Crash Reports are still, erroneously, often referred to as Arizona Traffic Accident Reports (thus the acronym TAR). In any event these reports are key to ALISS and accurate statistical reporting.

Most cyclists have a keen interest in establishing fault in collisions; some thinking that the cyclist-victim is rarely at fault, others having exactly the opposite view. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between.

What I really want to see is that collisions be investigated and reported thoroughly and that any appropriate charges or citations be brought against any negligent driver. (by either convention, practicality, or law: deceased people are not cited, regardless of fault)

Some cyclists have a belief there is a systemic bias against cyclists. I believe that “sunlight is the best disinfectant” and that transparency is key. To that end the only way is to look at each incident and make it available to any interested parties for scrutiny. As we shall see, the overall “quality” of reports varies dramatically; to the extent that certain law enforcement agencies routinely turn out poor quality reports one could make the case that that agency may have a bias, or is simply inept or in need of better procedures.

Reports as they become available will be linked at the 2009 Fatality Grid. (scroll over the right for links to the ACR).

Scanning

Best result was to scan 300dpi b/w document (1 bit) to tif file using my old (u1220) scanner. Each page image is about 1MB. Then used Acrobat pro 9 to assemble into a single pdf file; then run OCR with settings to make the smallest file. The ocr also straightens (and sometimes messes up graphics pages). The end result is around 2MByte for a 50 page report.

Obtaining

Crash reports are public records, and anyone is entitled to view and/or obtain copies of public records pursuant to §39-121, 121.01, 121.02 and 121.03). For non-commercial purposes (as here, traffic safety research), rates for copies vary by jurisdiction, as little as $5 per report. Many charge $0.25/page,  and postage. Reports tend to be about 50 pages.

Victims (or the family) of a crime are entitled to one free copy of the completed report (§39-127).

Although many jurisdictions have online availability, as a general rule, reports involving fatalities are not available online. Usually a phone call to the jurisdiction is required; commonly, the records department person can look up the case  number, and number of pages for any given report.

Requests can then be sent (usually mailed, along with a fee) to the jurisdiction.

City of Phoenix

The city of Phoenix is, as of this writing, hand-down, the most progressive city in Arizona for making traffic reports available inexpensively (free) and timely (instantly, online). You must know or obtain the incident number and a last name of any of the involved parties. vist: Phoenix Traffic Records. 602-534-1127. They are located just west of the airport.

The incident number is a nine-digit number, that looks like it begins with a two-digit year; followed by 7 digits. When searching i had some difficulties with the last name being lower case; sometimes it worked but other times not, all upper-case seems to always work.

The full Arizona Crash Report is then instantly downloadable. Copies of the “DR” (Departmental Report?), which would be only for more serious crashes, are available at 15 cents/page. Most things can be dealt with through fax or even email(!), i forgot to ask what forms of payment are acceptable.

Congratulations to the City of Phoenix, they are a model of efficiency and transparency in government.

I do have some minor gripes: their site insists on referring to “accident” reports; this is now (since at least 1/1/2009) officially incorrect. The term is “crash”, as in Arizona Crash Report.  See NHTSA campaign “Crashes are not Accidents“.

City of Tempe

I’ve not gotten any from them, but it looks like a relatively hard pull Tempe Police Records — “written” requests (no fax, no email) only, it’s not clear if checks are an acceptable form of payment (the form says “verifiable check”; what is a verifiable check? There doesn’t appear to be any online access.  The stated cost is $5 for up to 20 pages, and 25 cents per page over. It’s not clear if there is a fee for mailing.

City of Mesa

Overall experience was very good. Reports are inexpensive; I obtained two long (~50 pages each) for $5 each, and there was not a charge for mailing, though i did have to call to request they be mailed rather than picked up. Total turn time was under two weeks.

Visit the Mesa police records webpage (or here is a template ).

City of Tucson

This was very unusual. They take requests by email, promptly replied with a quote on number of pages and price (e.g. 50 pages at .25/page plus $5 postage). The will then print and mail the report along with an invoice so you can pay later.

Visit the Tucson Police Records webpage. (scroll down for email).

Pima County

This one is very difficult. You have to wonder if they are going out of their way to make it that way. As usual, fatal reports are not available online. So I called to get case number and number of pages. The person would not give me any information; I was told to send $5 (money order only) and the name/date/location of the incident. They would then find out how much it would cost, presumably more than $5, and they would somehow get back with me and I would then have to mail (another) money order for the balance, and then they would sent me the report. Phew.

Visit the Pima County Sheriff’s Record Maintenance Unit webpage.

First, some perspective: In the state of Arizona, approximately 1,000 people are killed per year in traffic collisions of all types. The number of cyclist (usually called a “pedalcyclist” in the jargon) fatalities fluctuated between15 and 36 per year over the past twenty years, with an average of about 25/year.

[as a sidebar, Arizona total traffic fatalities which have been as high as 1,293 just a couple of years ago, were down to 937 for 2008.  The exact cause of this happy trend is a matter of great debate, e.g. the effect of economic recession, and photo-enforcement. Even after this dramatic reduction Arizona roads remain significantly more dangerous than US averages ]

I have become increasingly frustrated by what seems to me to be short-shrift paid to analysis of crashes resulting in a cyclist’s serious injury/fatality, as opposed to simply tallying collisions together. For example, in the Phoenix Bicyclist Collision Summary, there are only two breakdowns in this regard: severity by time of day, and helmet usage. ( The Phoenix and ADOT reports are linked here).

So, I have tried to collect ALL cyclist fatalities in Arizona, beginning calendar year 2009, you can view the current results here: 2009 AZ Cyclist Fatality Grid. If anyone knows of a cyclist killed in Arizona that is not on that list, please contact the email address on the top of the grid.

There are a number of caveats, 1) the incidents are certainly incomplete, 2) the data reported is mainly limited to whatever was released by the police to the media.

Eventually, final results will be issued from the state, along with a county-by-county breakdown. At that point, I will “know what I don’t know” in terms of identifying incidents. Further, eventually, I would like to obtain police reports — but I am not sure if i will be able to locate them all, and cost may be a limiting factor.

Pre Prelimary Results

As of the second week of September 2010; there are 16 known (to me) cyclist fatalities in 2009. The (unofficial) ADOT count is 25, which means I have no information whatsoever on 9 fatalites that occurred in 2009.

5 of the 16 known incidents appear to be the fault of the cyclist:

• #2: juvenile who rode out from a sidewalk;
• #13: cyclist rode out from a sidewalk against a signal;
• #6: cyclist is said to have “crossed” in front of traffic, and was riding erratically (though there are reportedly problems with the police report, the police report has the driver’s behavior as “speed too fast”, and a police reconstruction has the driver’s speed at 12mph over the limit of 35, yet no citation was issued);
• #16: cyclist was struck by a motorcyclist while crossing the street.
• #15: I also placed the Flagstaff city Truck incident in this category, the report is somewhat inconclusive and there are several witness inconsistencies. Taken together, the report and city actions imply both-at-fault kind of thing, the driver was eventually cited for a bad right turn, and the report faults the cyclist for trying to pass the truck on the right.(decedents can’t be cited).

11 of the 16 known incidents were the fault of the motor vehicle driver. You can comb through the grid — the whole gamut is there including several hit-and-runs, DUIs and whatnot. And by the way 10 of those 11 drivers have either already been cited, or indicted on criminal charges. The other 1 of 11 drivers outcome is either under investigation or unknown at this time.

It should probably come as no surprise that the modality of fatalities varies dramatically from that of aggregating all bike/vehicle crashes together… e.g. from the Phoenix 2007 Summary “…the bicyclist was listed as the primary AT FAULT party more than twice as often as the motorist”. hmmm.

So that statement, based on this data, would read something like this: “for fatal bicyclist collisions in Arizona during 2009…the motorist is the AT FAULT party more often than the bicyclist”.

Finalized 2009 Results

Finalized 2009 stats available at both the NHTSA state-by-state and FARS database, became available 9/9/2010, there were a total of 25 cyclist fatalities in Arizona. So at present, 9 unknowns are now accounted for in the grid with known dates, times, FARS case number and (usually) specific location.

As I obtain information and crash reports on these, they will shift from unknown to known.

THIS POSTING IS OUT OF DATE, WATCH FOR POSTING ON THE AVAILABLITY OF AN ORGANIZED PAPER covering 2009 cyclist fatalities.

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I published this article, when i saw a write-up of a Fort Collins (Colorado) Collision summary described on cyclicious (and on treehugger), these diagrams look familiar(? maybe the Carol Tan paper?)

…

Here’s a typical national news story, from the LaTimes Traffic Deaths and Injuries Plummet in 2009: “Fatalities drop 9.7% from 2008 as the number of deaths dips to its lowest point since 1950, the Transportation Department says.” The official toll for 2009 is 33,808.

Closer to home, the total for 2009 in Arizona of 807 traffic fatalities represents a significant year-over-year drop that began in 2006, when there were 1,293 fatalities.

Per mile (VMT) figures won’t be available for awhile; it appears Arizona, which is consistently more dangerous than US averages will continue to close the gap.

Per capita figures show Arizona, again, consistently more dangerous than US averages, but continuing to improve.

Bicyclist Statistics

Bicyclists, statistically did not fare well in 2009. At 25 deaths, that is 6 higher than 2008, bucking the overall trend. Though the usual caution applies, the number of cyclist deaths is (thankfully) quite small, so a variation of just a few makes large percentage differences, and trends are harder to discern year-over-year.

That being said, I am trying to examine each and every cycling fatality in Arizona for the year 2009 one-by-one. Prior to the official release, i was aware of 16 fatalities; I am now aware of another 9 but they are  identified only by date time and (usually) location — but not name.

You can view a spreadsheet of everything I know about it here.

More details on Arizona 2009 cyclist deaths can be found here.

I was shocked to find out that Phoenix had 9 fatalities, of which I only knew about 4 previously. How can that be?

Arizona “Benefits”?

The Arizona Republic’s take included the odd conclusion that “Arizona benefits from being a younger state” thus the roads here are newer thus safer.

Arizona benefits from being a younger state. Because most development here is relatively recent, the roads are newer and designed to safer, more modern standards.

That means wider lanes and shoulders, better signs, smoother curves and banks, more guard rails and more innovations such as rumble strips, which are ruts in the sides of highways that alert drivers when they veer off the road.

“These are things people drive by every day which they may or may not notice. But they all contribute to make our roads safer,” said Laura Douglas, an Arizona Department of Transportation spokeswoman.

Rumble strips, for example, reduce the accident rate by a third, she said. ADOT also paints extra-thick road stripes, installs new guard rails that cushion crashes and uses larger, easier-to-see traffic signals, Douglas said.

Arizona traffic death toll drops to a 16-year low 9/11/2010, The Arizona Republic

This might be true in isolated examples, such as the rumble strips. Overall, though, this ignores the human-behavior dimension of driving. So, e.g. newer roads are much wider and straighter and the likely result is that drivers will drive faster. Maybe you’ll get relatively fewer wrecks but the ones that occur will be more violent as a result. If you look at the state-level NHTSA figures you will find the safest state is….. drumroll please… Massachusetts! A very old state. Arizona’s VMT rate is over twice as deadly as Massachusett’s. The disparity in per capita rate, since Arizonans drive more miles, is even worse.

Massachusetts happens to be the safest state in the US, but it’s not an outlier, the relationship holds up generally — states where most development pre-dated automobiles have far lower death rates, and vice versa.

“Better” roads also have a vicious circle effect of raising the number of miles driven, thus exposing one to more risk, albeit a decreasing risk per mile. In other words, dwelling on rate per VMT is misleading. Likewise, “better” vehicles, which are from an engineering perspective are much safer, have not yielded the expected improvement. Since as usual, human-behavior kicks in and drivers, knowing their vehicles are “safer”, (unconsciously or not) drive just a little more risk.

The basic gist is that everything you “know” about power, particularly if you are an American, is wrong. His data is no doubt correct, but I think he goes out of his way to sometimes mislead. For example he claims that the United States economy is somehow very energy efficient. To prove his point he gives figures for the change in energy intensity over some period shows that the US is “winning”, beating such countries as France and others. The trouble is, a simple trip to wikipedia shows that actual, and not the percentage change in,  energy intensity (power used per unit of economic output),the US continues to lag behind other industrialized nation, particularly of western europe and the UK. Furthermore, our large houses and large vehicles really drives our per capita energy consumption through the roof where it is around twice as high as countries such as the UK, France, Germany to name a few.

So contrary to what the author would have you believe, the US economy and lifestyle is, in fact, energy-gobbling.

On page 50 he says, referring to his skepticism about anthropogenic global warming, “…I adhere to one of the oldest maxims in science: Correlation does not prove causation”, then right on the next page “increasing energy consumption equals higher living standards. Always. Everywhere”.  I would posit/accuse the author of implying that the higher consumption of the US causes a higher standard of living — but that is nonsense; the typical person could trade in his sedan for an SUV using twice the fuel… and this wouldn’t create any wealth. I wouldn’t argue that Bangladeshis, for example as the lowest per capita energy consumption at fifty times less per capita energy use that Americans, could greatly benefit; just that Americans could stand to use less with no loss in wealth.

The book generally makes no mention of conservation at all, when in fact conservation has the least impact. forget coal vs. natural gas vs. nuclear;

The answer to his complaint that wind power’s variability requires too much backup (usually natural gas) could be addressed by smart-metering, which he doesn’t mention. Smart metering coupled with real-time demand pricing causes (either automatically, or financially) consumers to lower their demand during non-windy times.

He strangely either doesn’t talk at all(? or maybe mentions in passing) direct solar generation of electricity, either PV, Photo Voltaic, or thermal. Here in the desert where i live, it seems like direct generation eliminates the wind-variability problem that he dwelled on with windmills — that is to say that when the sun in out bright and shining is exactly when the highest electric grid loads are. So direct generation is a great for peak loads, the thermal even has a couple of hour lag in it which again matches up well to peak demand loads.

His ultimate solution he dubs N2N: Natural Gas to Nuclear — he wants way more natural gas consumption coupled with eventually way more nuclear. He does mention various problems of all sorts and even mentions that many of these things are externalities; but he doesn’t seem to think that is a problem, or suggest solutions (such as taxing pollution; or taxing mountain-top removal; or fixing coal ash pond problems), he just kind of supposes that we should accept it because that’s the way it is.

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What is an externality?

I also just got done reading Superfreakonomics by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner. (and by the way, lots of good stuff on the Freakonomics blog). It was a worthy follow-on to their earlier bestseller Freakonomics, and is eminently readable. I particularly liked the definition, from page 171:

What’s an externality? It’s what happens when someone takes an action, but someone else, without agreeing, pay some or all of the costs of that action.  An externality is an economic version of taxation without representation.

If you happen to live downwind of fertilizer factory, the ammonium stench is in externality. When your neighbor throws a big party (and you don’t have the courtesy to invite you), their ruckus is in externality.

Secondhand cigarette smoke is an externality, as is the stray gunshot one drug dealer meant for another that instead hit a child on the playground.

The greenhouse gases thought to be responsible for global warming are primarily externalities. When you have a bonfire in your backyard, you’re not just toasting marshmallows. You’re also emitting gases that in a tiny way, help heat the whole planet. Every time you get behind the wheel of a car, eat a hamburger, or fly in an airplane, you’re generating some byproducts that you’re not paying for.

Imagine a fellow named Jack, who lives in a lovely house — he buildt himself — and comes home from work. The first warm day of summer. All he wants is to relax and cool off. So he cranks the air conditioner all the way up. Maybe he thinks for a moment about the extra dollar or two he will pay on his next electricity bill. But the cost isn’t enough to deter him. What he doesn’t think about is the black smoke from the power plant that burns the coal that heats the water that turns the steam fills the turbine spins the generator. That makes the power to cool the house that Jack built. Nobody thinks about the environmental costs associated with mining and trucking away that coal, or the associated dangers. In the United States alone more than 100,000 coal miners died on the job over the past century, with another estimated 200,000 dying later from black lung disease. Now those are externalities. Thankfully coal mining deaths have plummeted in the United States to an average of about 36 per year. But if Jack happened to live in China, local deaf externality would be much steeper; at least 3000 Chinese coal miners died on the job each year. It’s hard to blame Jack for not thinking about externalities. Modern technology is so proficient that often masks the costs associated with our consumption is nothing visibly dirty about the electricity that these checks air conditioner. It just magically appears as if it were out of a fairy tale. If there were only a few Jacks in a world or even a few million noone would care. But as the global population hurtles toward 7 billion, all those externalities add up. So who should be paying for them?

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