Law of unintended consequences.

[Moonhawk]

A few stories/threads recently have got me thinking about the law of unintended consequences. That is - changing one thing has a detrimental effect on something else - that may in fact leave you in a worse position overall, or have an impact on something you hadn't considered.

Couple of possible examples.

• Parking charges in town centres. A good revenue raiser for local councils - yet has probably contributed to the decline of the high-street. How much have councils lost in business rates due to empty businesses or the rise of the charity shop? Have councils ultimately left themselves worse off as a result?

• Donor organs#. Many suitable donor organs come from accident victims. Could the continued drive for road safety, the wholesale reduction in speed limits etc have had an impact on the apparent decline in available organs reported in today's news?

(# before anybody jumps on me - i'm not suggesting we should be letting people crash just to keep the supply of donor organs up - i'm merely using it as a possible example of an unintended consequence).

[J4CKO]

I think there are still plenty of people dying and leaving a healthy set of organs to go and be cremated or buried, I think a lot of it is people don't think about it or are squeamish about it, perhaps there should be an opted in policy you have to opt out of for organ donation, rather than the other way around btu that is a whole other debate.

[Rude-boy]

The increase in Health and Safety.

"The problem with making things safer and idiot proof is that the general public just become bigger idiots."

[softtop]

Smoking and the revenue it brings into the government. If we all stopped then income tax would be raised.

The Manchester congestion charge was to be partially funded by the people that would continue to drive. If we all stopped the public transport would not have been viable and the cost to travel would rise as a consequence.

[jmorgan]

Organ donation will not be an issue in Wales later this year as the Assembly (that collection of hot air enthusiasts in Cardiff) have decided that we are all opted in.

[Hoofy]

Showing too much kindness and love to your kids... they'll grow up to be wet blankets.

[StuTheGrouch]

softtop said:

Smoking and the revenue it brings into the government. If we all stopped then income tax would be raised.

The revenue from smoking supports the raising cost of treating those with illnesses (cancer mostly) inflicted by smoking. Perhaps I'm being a touch naive about that though!


Edited- realised that my example was not relevant

Edited by StuTheGrouch on Monday 20th July 18:45

[StuTheGrouch]

Hoofy said:

Showing too much kindness and love to your kids... they'll grow up to be wet blankets.

Be too much of a to them and they grow up to be a disturbed psychopath.

Can't win.

[Sway]

StuTheGrouch said:

softtop said:

Smoking and the revenue it brings into the government. If we all stopped then income tax would be raised.

The revenue from smoking supports the raising cost of treating those with illnesses (cancer mostly) inflicted by smoking. Perhaps I'm being a touch naive about that though!


Edited- realised that my example was not relevant

Edited by StuTheGrouch on Monday 20th July 18:45

It does, several times over.

The rest of the dosh is used to prop up the welfare state and low-ish tax regime...

[FailHere]

An acquaintance in the medical profession advises me that as long as there are motorcyclists there will always be donors

[Hoofy]

StuTheGrouch said:

Hoofy said:

Showing too much kindness and love to your kids... they'll grow up to be wet blankets.

Be too much of a to them and they grow up to be a disturbed psychopath.

Can't win.

You just have to find the happy medium, like most people do.

[Trif]

Moonhawk said:

• Donor organs#. Many suitable donor organs come from accident victims. Could the continued drive for road safety, the wholesale reduction in speed limits etc have had an impact on the apparent decline in available organs reported in today's news?

Are you saying that car drivers are less worthy of their organs then sick people? *Whistles*

Perhaps organ donorship should be opt out?

[surveyor]

Moonhawk said:

A few stories/threads recently have got me thinking about the law of unintended consequences. That is - changing one thing has a detrimental effect on something else - that may in fact leave you in a worse position overall, or have an impact on something you hadn't considered.

Couple of possible examples.

• Parking charges in town centres. A good revenue raiser for local councils - yet has probably contributed to the decline of the high-street. How much have councils lost in business rates due to empty businesses or the rise of the charity shop? Have councils ultimately left themselves worse off as a result?

.

It used to be that the council gives all Business Rate income to Central Government, and gets a 'grant' back. Hence they did not lose anything. A few years ago I think the rules were changed so that if business rate income increased they got to keep some - it's relatively a small amount though.

With regards to charity, the government funds the mandatory 80% discount. The council can top this up to 100% with a discretionary relief - but must fund it themselves so it's as rare as hens teeth.

At least that's how it used to be...

[Impasse]

Advances in medical care has left us with members of the population at a pensionable age living for another 30-40 years but without the finances to manage or the necessary medical staff to care so many.

[marshalla]

Airbags, crumple zones, side intrusion protection = more people driving like inconsiderate tts because they know they'll survive more collisions.

[anonymous-user]

Recycling.....
Our local household recycling centre (formerly known as The Dump) is now so successful in saving the environment from old fridges, surplus TVs and the packaging from Ikea furniture that every morning there's a queue for 45minutes to get in the place......tailing back on to the nearest ring road roundabout causing no end of congestion.
All those cars......sitting in traffic, churning out nasty nasty fumes

[Moonhawk]

marshalla said:

Airbags, crumple zones, side intrusion protection = more people driving like inconsiderate tts because they know they'll survive more collisions.

Are there more collisions though. I cant find any data for car/car collisions - but this website has a couple of charts (about half way down) for total road accidents in Scotland involving pedestrians and cyclists (presumably coming into conflict with motorised vehicles) - and the numbers seem to be trending down.

If people were driving more inconsiderately because they felt safer - would you not expect the accident rate to have increased, especially with the number of vehicles on the road increasing over time too?

http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/report/j9041-0...

Perhaps it has for car/car collisions - but there seems to be very little data around. The only data seems to deal with casualties (slightly injured, seriously injured or killed - which are all trending down) - but does not account for collisions with no injuries.

[RobinBanks]

Sway said:

StuTheGrouch said:

softtop said:

Smoking and the revenue it brings into the government. If we all stopped then income tax would be raised.

The revenue from smoking supports the raising cost of treating those with illnesses (cancer mostly) inflicted by smoking. Perhaps I'm being a touch naive about that though!


Edited- realised that my example was not relevant

Edited by StuTheGrouch on Monday 20th July 18:45

It does, several times over.

The rest of the dosh is used to prop up the welfare state and low-ish tax regime...

At school we were given an anti-smoking pamphlet and I remember it stated that in 1995 tobacco tax revenue was around £12 billion and the NHS spent roughly £500 million on smoking-related illnesses. I've no idea if that is at all accurate - I suspect it's made up.

I think the intention was to show how expensive it is (and it's more expensive now)

[Luke Warm]

Our escapades in foreign lands.

Bombing Libya
Iraq War
Various other places.

[grumpy52]

Our dozy lot making the tunnel get rid of their ferry company .Two less boats on the cross channel run now ,every time a seagull farts we have operation stack,costing the country hundreds of millions of pounds each time it happens .