Shopping for a Car - the Prisoner’s Dilemma
Posted in Econ, Environment, Lifestyle, Money by George
My car is currently on its deathbed. My 1990 Toyota Camry has been so good to me for so long. However, I took it in to a repair shop a few weeks ago because I thought the rear cylinders were leaking. I wasn’t too worried because rear cylinder repairs are only a couple hundred bucks.
Turns out I was right… sort of. Not only were the rear cylinders leaking (slightly), but both front CV joints on my car are cracked, I have a bunch of “valve issues” and I’ve got oil leaking on my timing belt. Total projected repair cost: $1800. My car’s blue book value: sub $500. So I’ve come to the conclusion, that sometime in the near future, I need to find another car.
I’ve been looking around at new and used cars, and I’m probably going to go with the smallest, cheapest, most reliable thing out there, as I am a law student rapidly accumulating debt. However, the one aspect of this decision that bothers me the most is that because the average car on the road is getting bigger, and more and more people are driving SUVs, roads have become more dangerous for drivers of smaller cars. Essentially, it’s a prisoner’s dilemma of safety. All else equal, you can be safer if you drive a bigger car, at the cost of making everyone else less safe. The irony is that if everyone drives bigger cars, then we’re all just as safe as if we all drove smaller cars (or maybe even less safe if you factor in the increased likelihood of flipping over), because with each additional larger car on the road, there is an increased risk of being hit by a larger car, which will cause more damage than an equivalent accident with a smaller car.
Honestly, this will not affect my decision. Because I believe that pollution, resource depletion, and congestion are such serious problems, I would be a hypocrite to go out and buy a big car. Plus, the probability of getting into an accident where the “safety rating” of your car is an issue is insignificant - despite what commercials tell us.
Yet I can see how many people, especially those with families, choose to buy a bigger car primarily for safety concerns. Ironically, the danger they are trying to protect against is generated by other people, just like them, who are trying to be safe.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:05 am
I have seen studies that show SUVs are not safer than regular cars for children because SUVs tend to rollover more often which cancels out its size benefit in crashes.
There may be a perceived safety benefit and that might make people fall into the prisoner dilemma problem.
Another thing to consider is that SUV drivers may feel more secure and drive less safe or take more risks because of their perceived safety. That may lead them to end up rolling over since the driver may drive too fast and then make a big adjustment at the last minute which causes the SUV to rollover. So it might be the bigger car is safer but the drivers drive differently so the net effect is that the bigger cars are not any safer.
I ran a search and came up with this study.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/01/suv_...
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Interesting link. I would say that one could plausibly argue that even if larger cars do provide a safety boost, it is marginal at best. Yet it is pretty clear that they do make the roads more dangerous, and as you mentioned, in part because the perceived safety gets drivers to take more risks and pay less attention.
So one could argue there are two grounds for concern about the increased prevalence of SUVS. First, even assuming that they make the individual driver safer, if everyone buys them, each SUV makes the road more dangerous and therefore makes everyone just as safe as if everyone drove smaller cars, except we have to pay for more gas and steel. Or, secondly, SUVs are not actually safer, and each one makes every driver in a poorer situation.
Either way, I must admit that the safety marketing has been extremely effective. A lot of families are turning to SUVs for safety concerns, despite the two grounds of criticism mentioned above.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Say it isn’t so! I thought that car would live forever!
April 5th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hopefully the true price of gasoline and its effects on the environment will soon be realized and assigned accordingly. This would make the gas guzzling SUVs much less attractive and the kinds of cars you’re looking at now much more attractive (and riding bikes!). Hopefully it would also urge people to move closer to cities and work places and to push for changes in zoning laws that favor suburbs.