What price a life? What else would you block to save a life? Pen lids? Swimming pools? Marshmallows?
> if they make even a small mistake, they can die. In what universe is that reasonable?
This universe. It is nature's way. Nature is unemotionally brutal, and cares not for a slip-up. We just try to insulate ourselves from its brutality.
Edit to reply to Tullius (I've hit my comment limit): The whole origin of this discussion is the hit to quality of life that losing the 'right to roam' has given. Also, while pen lids and marshmallows are outliers, swimming pool deaths aren't - between 1 and 4yo, drowning is the leading cause of death in the US, and drowning is up there with traffic accidents up until the teen years.
Obviously there's some limit to the degree we can protect ourselves, however as it stands, traffic fatalities are one of the highest-ranked causes of death for kids and youth, and we know of plenty of things that could increase traffic safety while still satisfying our transportation needs. There's no need to debate some silly extreme when we can make vast improvements without compromising quality of life.
> This universe. It is nature's way. Nature is unemotionally brutal, and cares not for a slip-up. We just try to insulate ourselves from its brutality.
Yes, and we could insulate ourselves a lot better if we took up better traffic engineering principles.
I posted some statistics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13549214
Even adults screw up, we can't reasonably expect kids not to when the consequences can be fatal. We could easily make our streets safer and more tolerant of user error if we actually cared, look at Sweden or the Netherlands. We just have to make safety a higher priority than speed in road design.
Think about how insane it is that we're expecting kids to regularly navigate an environment where, if they make even a small mistake, they can die. In what universe is that reasonable? Why are expecting our children to regularly dodge death?