> That "nanny state nonsense" witnessed road deaths fall from 25 per 100K in 1930 to 10 per 100K since 2010

I think the better metric is the number of deaths per billion vehicle-km. In your metric most European countries have half the deaths than the US, but it's mostly explained by the fact that we drive less. I guess people had fewer cars and drove less in the 1930…

EDIT:

I found the stats: in 1930 you had 15.12 deaths per 100 million miles vehicle, in 2014 1.08. So the reduction is not 2.5x, but 15x!

> I'll take my nanny state nonsense where people are still alive, over the libertarian wet dream where they're dead.

Don't assume that everybody will.

Your reasoning is extremely flawed. We have fewer deaths on the road because we added safety features and have road features designed to address what caused accidents in the past. Newer cars have way more horsepower and acceleration than in the past, yet deaths have gone down. You are arguing for something different, arbitrarily restricting acceleration.

Uhh... I'm pretty sure vehicle safety improvements have more to do with that than anything.

And obviously we all drive much much faster on average than people did in the 1930s, yet we are much much safer.

Which are enacted largely through legislation.

Crumple zones, seat belts, and air bags are a far cry from setting hard limits on performance characteristics of the vehicle, even if those same requirements may have had a negligible impact on vehicle performance.

I guess the question is where the line is drawn between sensible and "nanny-state" regulation.

to me, the rule of thumb is: does this regulation encourage innovation, or curtail it? it isn't black or white, but i think it brings it into focus a bit more.