Fust, as noted, a policy problem represents a set of "unrealized values, needs or opportunities, which, however identified, may be attained through public action" (Dunn 2008, 72). A policy problem can also be viewed as a "sys tem of external conditions that produce dissatisfaction among different seg ments of the community" (Dunn 1981, 99). By this perspective, a policy problem is an event or condition that produces dissatisfaction beyond one or two individuals. People are upset. A single complaint about the slow response of police or fire services does not amount to a policy problem-though, collec tively, more complaints would be symptomatic of a policy problem. This helps in the definition. But how do we know whether it is an actionable problem, as opposed to something simply annoying? Here it may be useful to define a pol icy problem by analogy, as in a public question that can be settled by evidence that all rival observers have no choice but to accept (Runciman 1998, 8). Thus congestion, measured by road density and average speed of traffic, and leading to x hours of time wasted and y gallons of fuel consumed,with corresponding increases in measurable levels of nitrogen oxide, can be considered an action able public policy problem . By contrast, the question of whether President Clinton's new seatbelt initiative was racially based because it could have been used against minorities was not a public policy problem. It was an annoying possibility rather than an actionable condition. At this stage of the policy pro cess, that aspect of the initiative was merely an interesting metaphysical ques tion or an issue of political philosophy, but not a policy problem. Despite the lack of a real problem, action is often taken anyway to kill proposals such as this or to change procedures.