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Discussion

Gregory Flanagan Director, Libertocracy Association

Politicians, police, highway engineers, automobile manufacturers, and traffic regulators have created a "tragedy of the commons" predicament resulting in an uncontrollable environment of mayhem and death on the public highways. The roadways which are currently monopolized by the state are in need of privatization and free market operation. Political management of roads is not only inefficient, it obstructs the ability of people to have better and more effective management and maintenance of the roads and prevents people from being better able to protect themselves on the road by having stricter regulations and better protection for travelers. Political monopolization of the roads is yet another form of tyranny that licenses the ability of people to travel, which infringes on the right to freedom of travel. This power to violate what is a right and instead license people's movement leads to other abuses, such as; invasion of privacy and unwarranted inspections by the political-police of vehicles in random checks and road blocks without any suspicion of any crime. This form of obstruction of traffic is not only a violation of people's rights, it has been proven in studies conducted by the police departments themselves that the police catch more people driving under the influence in normal patrols by looking for suspicious behavior than they do in random checks or road blocks, yet they continue to infringe on everyone's rights and punish everyone because someone might be doing something wrong. This manner of policing the roads is inefficient and obsolete. There is now a much better way to detect and stop people from driving under the influence.
   Privatizing the roads will make the maintenance of the roads better and will lead to better management of traffic and to better protection for travelers. Private ownership of roads which will be publicly open for all to use would not mean that there would be barriers or toll gates at every turn and so many different rules that it would be confusing. The owners of the roads will have to sign contracts between them or reach agreements in treaties between the different government jurisdictions under which the roads exist to arrange ahead of time for the collection of tolls and to standardize traffic rules on all of their roads, or at least on roads within a certain area.
   I believe that the most efficient way of managing traffic and collecting tolls is by putting a computer  in each vehicle that will act as the registration and license for the vehicle to travel on all of the roads which are managed within the roadway industry. The computer would have a Global Positioning System receiver that will identify where the vehicle is located and on what road, the computer will instantly identify the rules of the road, the speed limit on a particular road as well as providing an onboard map. The computer will send a signal to a local coordination center that will monitor the vehicle and will collect tolls.
   For instance, when a car cranks up, the computer meter would automatically switch on and as it enters onto a road, the signal from the car's computer would identify the vehicle and the road on which its traveling. As the car speeds up, the computer will keep track of its speed and will receive GPS signals which identify the location of the car along the road and the computer will correspondingly match the location on its internal map which will identify the speed limit on that particular stretch of road. When the car turns onto another road which is owned by someone else, the car's computer will function seamlessly with standardized signs and identification which has been pre-determined across the whole roadway industry. So that there are no inconveniences in traveling between roads owned by different entities.
   By projecting all signs, directions and advertisements onto the monitor or windshield, or the computer can vocally announce messages, it makes it more convenient for the driver who is able to get more information when one needs it and it will eliminate the need for roadside clutter, crass billboards and other giant signs that are visual pollution.
   By getting sponsors to advertise on the monitors, the owners of roads will be able to reduce the operating costs of the roads and the electronic equipment making travel cheaper for the motorists.

On-Board Monitors
Illegal speeding will be prevented by the onboard monitor which will warn the driver when one is approaching the speed limit and can fine a driver for exceeding the speed limit for more than an established reasonable time. The driver will be fined more the greater that one exceeds the speed limit. Should the driver continue driving above the speed limit, then the headquarters will dispatch a police patrol to intercept the speeding vehicle. The onboard computer may not automatically shut down the vehicle for the reason of allowing people to be able to speed in an emergency, though the on-board monitor will forcibly slow the vehicle down to below the speed limit and will gradually slow the vehicle to a complete spot when the police near the location of the vehicle, this will totally eliminate high speed chases that endanger innocent lives. Habitual speeding will raise the cost of the drivers insurance, toll charges and may result in loss of license to drive. Though eventually, computers will be able to drive the vehicles themselves, which will lead to complete safety and order.
   Legal speeding in an emergency may be allowed reasonably safely by the driver pushing an emergency button on the monitor notifying company headquarters that one is speeding because of an emergency. The traffic control center will then notify all other drivers on the road in front of the emergency vehicle so that they may watch out for or pull off the road for the emergency vehicle, just as people should do to allow an ambulance or fire truck to pass. The driver should also push a correct button on the monitor to notify the appropriate emergency service, either police or ambulance, so that they may respond immediately and intercept the vehicle as soon as possible or meet the vehicle at a hospital or other location. Anyone pushing an emergency button falsely will be in much greater trouble than simply for a speeding ticket.
   On state run roads there is one speed limit for one stretch of road, free market roads will have different speed limits on the same stretch of road at different times of the day and under different weather conditions in different seasons. The appropriate speed during the day may not be appropriate at night or when raining or snowing, the decisions over the appropriate speed limit will initially be established by the insurance companies who will have to pay for accidents balanced with the demand from the consumers.
   The toll charged for using a particular road will be determined by the supply and demand market. Heavily traveled roads will cost more, while least traveled roads will be less. Drivers will have to decide whether they will pay a little more to drive on a heavily traveled road or choose a lesser traveled road at a cheaper price. Heavy traffic and traffic jams occur because people demand to use a particular road at the same time without any incentive to choose an alternative route. When consumer-drivers have to weigh the cost in money of using the heavily traveled road and the cost in time and the cheaper price for using an alternative route, many drivers will choose the alternative route and others will plan to go a little sooner or later to avoid the heavy traffic and its cost. Traffic can be managed more efficiently in this system because the control centers may better plan and direct traffic, especially if drivers give advance notice to arrange to use alternative plans during rush hour. This consumer decision should help to alleviate a lot of heavy traffic and in particular traffic jams, since drivers will receive constant traffic reports through their on-board computer with directions on alternative routes, with up to the second price cuts to encourage drivers to take other routes. Drivers would get price breaks for traveling at times when traffic is normally light.
   Owners of automobiles would be charged according to the burden that the vehicle places on the roads and the environment. For instance, large trucks heavily loaded would be charged the most while smaller cars would be charged less relative to their size. Vehicles that are heavy polluters will be charged more, including charging vehicles that make more noise than others. These charges will be higher in residential areas or other areas that are sensitive to auto emissions pollution or to noise. So that private ownership of roads improves the quality of life in cities and neighborhoods and better protects the environment. This disincentive against pollution will encourage manufacturers and owners to reduce emissions and make their vehicles quieter. It will, in particular, encourage the development and ownership of electric vehicles. The size of the vehicle and the level of emissions and noise of the vehicle will be determined when the vehicle is registered and may be checked periodically by the on-board computer.
   Because speed limits are a commodity that is bought and sold, road owners will want to sell the appropriate speed limit that the drivers demand, this will inevitably be tailored to the demand of individual drivers. A driver who is alone on a stretch of road with no other vehicles around or ahead may have the speed limit waived, the traffic control center will allow an unlimited speed until the driver begins approaching another vehicle in the distance and at that point the computer will warn the driver to reduce speed back to a safe limit because of a vehicle ahead. Speed limits will change from minute to minute if all of the drivers on a particular stretch of road have elected to have variable speed limits, this means that all of the drivers using a section of road agree to accept some predetermined speed limit that the driver chooses oneself and is subject to acceptance by other drivers using the road at the time. For instance, if the speed limit is normally 100 kph and driver (A) has signed up under one's insurance policy to say that one prefers to drive 5 kph above the speed limit and driver (B) has preferred to drive 10 kph above the limit while driver (C) prefers 20 kph above the limit, in this case, the traffic control computer that has all of these records on file and is instantly able to identify what vehicles are using a stretch of road at the time will instantly calculate that the preferred minimum speed for all of the vehicles is 5 kph above the normal speed limit, the computer will instantly notify all drivers of this change in speed limit which will be in effect only for the group of vehicles traveling together as though they were in a convoy. Other groups of vehicles will have different speed limits. One driver may not choose speed limits below the common established limit and impose that on others.
   These speed limits will be balanced between the desires of the insurance company to hold speeds down and prevent accidents and the desire of drivers to go faster, so drivers who choose a higher speed limit or no speed limit at all under some conditions will have to pay higher insurance premiums.Drivers and insurance companies will negotiate with road owners over speed limits, drivers will settle on the speed at the point where the marginal cost of paying higher premiums exceeds their desire to go faster, insurance companies will negotiate to reduce speed limits to the point where they maximize the number of drivers willing to purchase their policy, road owners will then set the standard and variable speed limits at the point where they attract the most customers and maximize profits.
   A driver may reduce or increase one's average tolls depending on one's driving record, a person with a bad driving record will find one's average toll is higher, a person with D.U.I. convictions may be denied use of the roads or charged extremely high tolls, a good long-term driving record may lower tolls.   
   It will be necessary for owners of roads to set up a common, private, industry authority to oversee the regulation and fair business practice of road owners across governmental jurisdictions. This authority may have to establish regulations to protect consumers against overcharging. In particular against a road owner overcharging people for the use of a road when there is no good alternative routes nearby. The authority would set standards for the appropriate tolls and study the cost of maintaining the particular road and investigate complaints of overcharging. The authority would have the power to reduce the tolls to a reasonable level and to fine owners who have in the past overcharged and give a refund to all persons who were overcharged.
   The authority would also establish regulations that protect drivers from being exploited by being overcharged for using their own neighborhood roads. People who live in a residential neighborhood may choose to build or purchase their neighborhood streets themselves or they may get the regulatory authority to greatly reduce the toll for using one's neighborhood streets or eliminate the toll completely with the cost for maintaining the streets charged to non-residents. Persons who drive to visit other people may have their toll reduced or the person whom they are going to visit may arrange to eliminate the toll. Persons who have no business in the residential area and in particular large trucks who may take short cuts through or near residential areas would be charged a great deal more or in some cases denied access. This will absolutely prevent speeding in residential neighborhoods and will keep them safe for children and pets to play in the streets.
  On some roads, the onboard computer may strictly enforce the speed limit by not allowing the vehicle to exceed the limit, while on other roads were the driver will be allowed to decide whether or not to exceed the speed limit and pay the higher cost. Vehicle speed is a product that consumers demand and will pay for accordingly. The market will set the speed limit.
   The onboard monitor can also detect erratic or reckless driving. If the driver is engaging in dangerous driving the monitor will warn the driver to correct one's behavior and if it doesn't stop then a police patrol will be notified and dispatched to the vehicle's location. If the erratic driving is a result of debris in the road, then the driver should notify the headquarters through the onboard computer telling them that there is debris in the road, the command center can then dispatch a crew to clean it up.
   The onboard monitor can eliminate dangerous high speed chases by the police which endanger public safety and sometimes kill innocent people. If a driver attempts to flee the police or the scene of a crime, the police or company headquarters can immediately signal the onboard computer to shut down the vehicle.

Preventing Driving Under the Influence
Tens of thousands of people die in traffic accidents caused by persons driving under the influence each year throughout the world. Statistics show that around 20 thousand people, each year, die in the United States from alcohol related accidents. In 1999, over 16,000 Americans were killed in alcohol related fatalities, that number was down from previous yearly highs around 20,000. Each year "some 40 to 50,000 Americans are killed in traffic accidents, each year some 4 million Americans are injured, and among these, some 70,000 suffer some permanent brain or spinal cord damage. Auto accidents are the leading cause of death among young and middle-aged people in industrialized nations.(2)
    Peter McWilliams(1) reported, "In 1990, more than half of the fatal car accidents in this country were related to alcohol, killing 22,083 people...An additional 469,000 nonfatal car crashes involved alcohol. Half of all teenage fatalities are alcohol-related"..."More than 11 million Americans have witnessed a family member killed or seriously injured by a drunk driver in the last nine years. Society's loss in wages, productivity, medical and legal costs caused by death and injuries in drunk-driving crashes exceeds $24 billion each year. On an average Friday or Saturday night, one of every ten drivers on the road is drunk." It said in his book.(1)
   Currently, despite efforts by the state to impose intrusive regulations on people by restricting the right to freedom of travel by licensing drivers and by the political police randomly stopping people without any reasonable cause or observed evidence of illegal behavior, which violates their civil rights, the state has failed to protect innocent people on the public roads. The random civil rights intrusions, including road blocks and unwarranted vehicle searches don't effectively clear the road of impaired drivers. The political-police themselves know by their own studies that road blocks and random stops do less to catch drunken drivers than do having patrols out watching for suspicious driving. But even with twice as much patrols on the road there are many drunk drivers who are not caught and if things stay the same, hundreds of thousands of people will die needlessly in the next few years. We can prevent these deaths.
   If roads were privately owned and tens of thousands of people were dying on them each year, there would be a national outrage, there would be protest marches with people demanding that the government take over the roads and politicians would be demanding regulation and public control of the roads. But that is exactly the situation we have today and tens of thousands of people are dying on them each year. So where's the outrage? The only way to save the tens of thousands of people who will die in auto accidents in the next few years is to privatize the roads. If all of the public roads were under our authority, as described in this article, and were regulated by an organization through treaties between legitimate government authorities we could guarantee to save almost all of those persons' lives who would die from DUI accidents.
   The way that we can do this is by using a technology called Biosensors which is connected to a steering wheel that absorbs the perspiration of the driver and analyzes it for any substance which would impair driving.
   With Biosensors all persons who would drive impaired can be stopped. When a person starts the vehicle and puts one's hands on the steering wheel, Biosensors will begin analyzing the driver's perspiration, if its clear, then the driver will be able to start driving the vehicle. This means that there is no inconvenience to anyone and the driver doesn't even have to think about it. Only after Biosensors has analyzed the perspiration and has detected a banned substance that impairs driving, which can be done within seconds after putting one's hands on the steering wheel, a warning will be issued and very shortly afterward the vehicle's computer will begin slowing the vehicle to an eventual stop where the electric system will shut off the engine and prevent the vehicle from being restarted. A drunk driver can't use gloves to cover it up because the system must sample perspiration to allow the vehicle to continue. Should someone get behind the wheel sober and drink while driving, as the alcohol enters the system it will be detected by Biosensors. If Biosensors does detect any banned substance, besides shutting down the vehicle, the monitor will instantly notify the police by identifying the vehicle and location so the police may immediately respond to the scene and arrest the driver.
Besides preventing driving under the influence, Biosensors can also detect when the driver is fatigued, by detecting an increase of lactic acid which occurs just before a person falls asleep, and warn the driver to stay awake or pull over to rest.

The government can't require drug testing or monitoring in order to drive, Biosensors can only be used on privately owned roads. Biosensors may only be required for drivers who have been convicted of driving under the influence in the past.  

Highway Automation
The future of free market roads will certainly be automation, because it is most efficient and gets motorists to where they want to be quicker and potentially cheaper. The cost in the near future will be prohibitive but as the technology improves it should become cost effective, at least on some very busy roads which are clogged by traffic jams. Automobile technology has evolved enormously through the century (compare the Model A to today's high tech models), yet the roads remain primitive, basically the same as those originally paved, they're just long slabs of asphalt. The difference? Autos are produced by private industry, the roads are built by the state, a public good with little incentive for innovation. What innovation is possible for roads? The politicians don't even consider that.
   In a free market, the road will evolve to meet and converge with the high tech vehicles of tomorrow, the roads will become thoroughfares of automation, vehicles which are controlled by a company central computer and roads which will have lines that are laser guided rails for helping the vehicle to drive itself, by using lasers in the vehicle which would reflect off reflective lines along the road, the computer in the vehicle would control the vehicle, completely keeping it always within the lines and proceeding at the proper speed which may be maximized and coordinated with other vehicles. Vehicles traveling in the same direction may then travel in a convoy and because the computer knows the destination of each vehicle, the convoy may travel at maximum speed since there is no unpredictable changing of lanes, entering or exiting the road. Instead of roads being clogged by traffic jams, the computer will efficiently control large flows of traffic with vehicles traveling very close to each other, nearly bumper to bumper, but at high rates of speed, the computer will allow new vehicles to enter the highway at the end of the convoy or the computer will separate vehicles automatically if the convoy is very long to allow new vehicles to enter the convoy.
   The motorist when getting into the vehicle would tell the computer one's intended destination, the computer would then navigate the best possible route and offer the motorist a choice between the shortest, fastest route or the cheapest.
   Another great advantage to automation is that it will save road space, instead of vehicles having to maintain a large cushion between each other they will move in fast, compact convoys, and it will save horizontal space, instead of wide four to eight lane highways with a run off-area on either side of the road and beyond that a large section of grass up to a fence, all of which is claimed by the state, this is extremely wasteful use of land space and results in unnecessary confiscation of private property to build these highways. When the highways are automated their width will shrink considerably because the computer will prevent any danger of running off the road, the vehicles can pass closely by each other while going in opposite directions and no run-off area will be needed on the sides.
   Plans for developing automated highways are well underway, the technology is here now, it has been tested and needs only to be perfected, however the greatest obstacle is political opposition and the cost. In fact, on a TV report, I saw a successful test of an automated vehicle, which drove itself, without a passenger, along a closed road built especially for the vehicle to use its on-board laser guidance to steer between the lines in the road. A remote control was only used to start and stop the vehicle, once the vehicle was programmed where to go it was able to steer itself.
   Other possible innovations may be roads that melt snow and ice by heated electric lines in the asphalt and bridges that are raised and lowered for tall trucks.

At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in England, private turnpike companies built and maintained an extensive network of private roads throughout the country. These roads were instrumental in allowing the Industrial Revolution to transform society.(4) The owners of these turnpike companies were large land owners, merchants and industrialists who saw opportunities in opening up trade and access to their land and by charging tolls. Turnpike companies managed to agree to have interconnected roads throughout the country without regulation or any serious disputes. Private companies also built a network of private canals throughout England. During the late 1700s and early 1800s most of the roads in America were privately built. An extensive network of private turnpikes existed in the northeastern United States between 1800-30 and were the first good roads built in America. Companies cut roads into the wilderness over long distances and charged tolls for their use. This private initiative helped to open up the wilderness to settlers and commerce. If not for private entrepreneurial spirit, these roads would not have been built at that time.(3)

Market Efficiency
In the past, statists claimed that the state had to monopolize certain industries such as energy, telecommunications and local utilities, they argued that if there were different private telecommunications companies they would interfere with one another's signal on public lines therefore they would all try to string up their own lines and block one another out. This, of course, was an absurd argument made by people who didn't understand the incentives that exist in the free market. If the Internet was only a proposed means of communication the statists would probably be arguing that the state must take it over and regulate it because if they didn't people would be writing their own language codes and there would be so much chaos that no one would be able to communicate because of the conflicting codes. The Internet developed so quickly and programmers who created the World Wide Web and all of the data that is transmitted through the Web has lead to voluntary regulation by the free market, because everyone who writes codes or builds websites has a vital interest in making sure that the Internet is kept open. HTTP: hypertext transfer protocol became the standard language for transmitting web pages, even though there are hundreds of other language codes. The World Wide Web Consortium is the private industry regulatory authority that was created to regulate disputes and settle on common language codes so that there is open inter-operability. Similar private regulatory authorities will keep privately owned roads open, accessible and running smoothly. Because the growth of the Internet and the development of software and communication codes has been so rapid the ignorant politicians haven't had the opportunity to interfere with it. Yet some people still use the same fallacious arguments to support the political monopoly over the roads, that if roads were privatized there would be gates and toll booths everywhere, which is the same foolish argument made by people who don't understand the free marketplace, owners of roads will only make a profit if they allow easy access to the public.
   People living in a community association may pool their money to pay for their own roads with a small annual fee and not have to pay each time they use it. A private road owner may see the long term profits of paving a rural road to the nearest highway to get people to sign up to use the extensive free market road network.
   I think highways will eventually become more like telecommunications lines, with different companies providing toll collection and computer monitoring, with other companies do building and maintenance on roads that are owned by shareholders. That way, there wouldn't be roads cut all over the place. If there was only a need for one road to one destination, you would have different companies competing to provide better services on the same road to get customers to use their other roads. Like different telecom companies. competing for customers on the same lines which are maintained by many companies. Like the privatization that has been occurring in telecommunications and in utility services and now in energy supply where energy companies are allowed to compete all over the country instead of being limited to a monopoly over a local area, the market forces are moving in the direction of privatizing the roads, roads will be privatized in the near future because there are compelling economic reasons for doing so which will make them more efficient and deliver a better service to the consumers, politicians who have become educated in the advantages the public gains in privatizing those former industries will soon realize that the same principles apply to the roads as well.

Copyright © 1999-2000 (4999-5000) Libertocracy© Association and Gregory Flanagan. All rights reserved.