Milgram Experiment, DOT Compliance to Authority without Regard to Safety
In the same period of time Morgantown's PRT has delivered 110 million injury-free passenger-miles, more than 1.7 million Americans have been road-killed.
Despite the deaths and clear understanding that safer transportation networks are practical, DOTs have consistently forced obedience to the Federal highway monopoly in direct violation of the Constitution's "post Roads" restriction.
To correct the real life Milgram Experiement of DOT tolerance for road-kills, sovereign immunity should be removed from agencies and individual administrators.
Although a team of psychiatrists predicted that only about one-tenth of 1 percent of the participants in the Milgram obedience research would fully obey the experimenter's commands and administer the highest shock level on the generator, to Milgram's astonishment, 65 percent of the participants (26 out of 40) fully obeyed the experimenter's commands completely, despite the convincing cries of agony from the learner. In addition, all participants who reached 450 volts obeyed the experimenter's command to continue by using the 450-volt switch until the experiment ended. Furthermore, all subjects obeyed up until 300 volts (Franzoi 299).
Shock Levels at Which Milgram's Participants Disobeyed (n=40) Compared to Predicted Disobedience by Psychiatrists
Voltage
Predicted Defectors %
Actual Defectors %
Defectors
75
15
0
0
135
44
0
0
150
68
0
0
210
86
0
0
300
96
12.5
5
315
96
22.5
4
330
97
27.5
2
345
99
30
1
360-435
99
35
2
450
99.9
35
0
Source: Data from S. Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc. 1974; and S. Milgram, The Individual in a Social World: Essays and Experiments, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1992. (as cited in Franzoi 299).