workplace safety regulations?

[David S]

The main issue I have with government regulations is that if government finds that a little bit of regulation is good then alot must be better. That's when they go overboard. As an example, at one time OSHA was considering regulations to prevent carpal tunnel which would have applied to home offices. OK OSHA stay out of my home and my office. Regulations which prevent people from getting fingers and or hands amputated by presses are good. Laws which put OSHA in my house are bad.

But I wonder if there aren't better ways of giving businesses a financial incentive to improve workplace safety by making them financially liable for injuries and possibly subject to fines too. That would give them a financial interest in finding the most cost effective means of reducing injuries.

A related area of government safety regs is automotive safety. There is no doubt that seat belts save lives and they aren't too expensive either. The next step was airbags. Airbags also save lives overall but not nearly as many as seatbelts and airbags have also taken some lives. The immediate fix for that was to allow auto manufacturers to use less powerful airbags, although that forced them to allow less severe crash tests too. Government also warned people not to sit too close to the airbag and not put childseats near airbags. That effort greatly reduced airbag related deaths. But government wasn't happy yet. The most recent generation of airbags were designed to meet government rules intended to reduce  injuries caused by airbags without any thought by the occupants. The new rules are much more complicated and expensive and its questionable whether they will work any better. In that respect I think they are approaching the point of diminishing returns or perhaps have passed it.
But I think a big problem is that they force manufacturers to do what the law requires and not to develop innovative approaches that might be more effective.