Driving for asymmetry
I went on a roadtrip with some friends for new years. We went up to a small house about 4,5 hours away from where we live.
For the trip, we’d spent some time talking about the trip itself. What to do whilst driving, what music to listen to, how many stops we’d need and so on. I was the designated driver as I know the way, and we got to borrow my mums car.
The three of them were all quite keen on one thing: to drive as safely as possible.
To the point, I’ve driven to the house about 20 times in the past years. In those times, I’ve developed a rule for my own speed limit: 19 km/h over the actual limit is fine. That’s usually what I set the cruise control at.
That’s a rule developed mostly for myself. The law here states that you can get a fine if you’re speeding up to 20 km/h. If you’re doing more that 20 over the limit on the highway and get caught, you lose your license. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
I told my friends about the rule, and they all clearly stated that we’re keeping to the actual speed limit. They didn’t have any of my BS about it being nice to go fast on the highway.
Because of that, we mostly kept to the limit. I sure did speed a couple of times, mostly to pass other cars going just a little bit slower than ourselves.
When I’d dropped them all off and went to return the car to my mom, I drove on a smaller road, and encountered a stop sign in an intersection, and something hit me.
Breaking the laws when driving is a big negative asymmetry.
At least in most cases, and certainly in all of the cases that I’d found myself in on the trip. Let’s get some examples:
When I drove up to the stop sign, there were no cars in sight. I could’ve just driven past it without stopping at all.
The risk if I would’ve kept driving: Being caught, I would’ve had to pay a fine. Not getting caught, I could’ve missed a car coming my way and gotten in a crash.
The reward if I would’ve kept driving and none of the above were to happen: Saving about 5–10 seconds of driving.
When driving on the highway, there are some other negative asymmetries if I break the law:
Risk if getting caught: a hefty fine or losing my license. If I don’t get caught: I increase the risk of getting in to an accident by a lot. And I increase the risk of a non-fatal accident becoming fatal by even more.
The reward if none of the above happens: 10% of driving time cut off our trip. In our case not even half an hour.
Breaking the law can be justified by the logic of asymmetries, but it rarely is. Most times, it’s a negative asymmetry where the risk is way bigger than the reward.
Therefore, I vow to drive a lot safer from now on. It’s simply not worth it in most cases.
