Agreed. Part of the problem is that we use the word "accident" when it's almost always someone's fault.

Everytime I see someone driving terribly I know there's a 50%+ chance they have a sizable dent on their car from a car crash or from them hitting some inanimate object. It's actually a game I play - I'll see someone driving poorly and then say "where's the dent" and look for it. Sometimes I'll even switch lanes to check the other side where it will inevitably be. For certain cars like the Pontiac Grand-Am, my theory puts the dent % and dent damage much higher.

In many ways, insurance and how we treat collisions as "accidents" enables them to drive with no regard. By the time they're dropped from insurance, they probably already hurt someone.

Except that statistically car injury accidents are so rare, they probably haven't.

I was talking about those that get dropped by insurance (usually multiple crashes) and also - you can get injured and not report it.

But anyway, 4.6 M injuries isn't rare. "But there are also millions more who are seriously injured — an estimated 4.6 million in 2016 according to NSC" [1]

[1] http://fortune.com/2017/02/15/traffic-deadliest-year/

One day you'll be so intent on checking dents on other peoples cars you will cause an accident yourself! My theory is that people should be looking at traffic, not at the detailing on someone else's vehicle.

I'm not that hardcore focused on it haha. Most of the time I'm trying to get away from them and get a distance. I'm also checking in on them for any sudden movements.

If someone's car is dented, like real dents from a crash, I take extra precaution. It's a filter that works. I'll notice big dents all the time and then the person drives like shit but I'm aloof and safe. I look for people on the phone (calling or texting) too and avoid them. I'll look for 90+ year old people too; their reflexes aren't as quick.

Knock on wood, but I've never been in a car crash. Apart from when I was stupid as a teenager, I'm very cautious.

Driving through Chicago always worries me. People in big cities like that often drive like maniacs, and the number of BMWs, Audis, and other expensive luxury cars I see missing their bumpers or with large amounts of damage on quarter panels is astounding. Yet they're still zipping in and out of their lanes to get to their exit 20 seconds faster than everyone else.

Because you don't make an implicit cost/benefit analysis when you get ebola. You do when you drive. Every time you drive, you willingly take some risk and accept it.

It's the same reason people shrug their shoulders when a mafia guy gets gunned down but lose their shit when a child is killed by stray gunfire. The mafia guy opted in to the risk.

Ebola doesn't give you freedom to live where you want and work where you want. We live in a world where we can afford to travel what was once long distances to do so, all due to the automobile. We spend tons of time in our cars, and it's safe time because we have to drive 100 million miles before we can expect one death among us or our passengers.

I think you might misunderstand the statistic. He's saying one out of every 70 deaths. If there were only 70 deaths a year, one would be from a car accident. Far more would be from suicide, cancer, and heart disease.

I grasp that. ~1.5% of deaths is a significant number. People worry about getting brain cancer or being struck by lightning more than they worry about the risk of being annihilated by a machine, despite the latter being more common.

Well fortunately car accidents aren't contagious like Ebola. If Ebola had spread it easily could have killed far more people than car accidents, hence the panic and need to quickly address it.