Interestingly in this case an "approval" similar to the one we are talking about did happen over that weekend didn't it? I think the approvers brokered the deal.
> Furthermore, only buildings were insured – neither their contents, nor the lives of their occupants, were covered.
Yeah it sounds to me from the article like the insurance was for the rebuild, and the firefighting was something the insurance company did to reduce their payouts.
So I imagine if you didn't have insurance, you still were at more risk than if you did, similar to now, because the fire dept isn't going to save everything every time.
There must be a price that the fire department could theoretically charge if they were gonna always charge on the spot, and still make a profit, as long as there is some minimum number of fires.
Also it says that this TN guy had insurance. I wonder if it would have been worth his insurance company's while to make sure that $75 was always paid, either by paying it themselves, or making him pay it, or paying it and sending him the bill, and somehow making it a condition.. to protect themselves from having to pay out... as the London article is about insurance companies starting fire brigades themselves for that very reason
> South Fulton's mayor said that the fire department can't let homeowners pay the fee on the spot, because the only people who would pay would be those whose homes are on fire.
It should also leave every 20 mins with no late penalty (lots of spare capacity) so that you don't have to get there early just in case. That "buffer" standing around is also a waste of time. We invent a way to get there super fast and then we have to optimise it to the point where we have to get there an hour early to make it work reliably.. because a traffic jam or security delay can destroy everything.
Maybe the emphasis on high speed in not necessary. People already seem to love sitting around in all kinds of environments.. bars, watching netflix, or programming for a lot of people here. What if instead of figuring out what kind of rails would be needed to move a train at the speed of flight, we figured out what kind of rails were needed to economically move the equivalent of a first class lounge from Los Angeles to San Francisco in like seven or eight hours... or maybe it's an eco cruise ship, or a new bus design. Either way, for a lot of people who board just before 10AM on a Sunday, and watch two NFL games, the net travel time from Los Angeles to San Francisco could be close to 0.. and you can't beat that.