Is traffic really that deadly? I feel like urban crosswalks are a solved problem, even for young kids.

You’ve never walked in my city I guess.

Last year there was a fatal car accident. The driver was going so fast down a narrow, one lane road that when he hit a car pulling out of the driveway, the car flipped over. Imagine how pedestrians feel about that or parents feel about that to their kids.

There were about 400k accidents, 20k serious injuries, 1,500 total traffic fatalities, and 250 pedestrian fatalities in my current state last year. Out of a population of 10.5 million.

Which puts the per capita likelihood at 3.8, 0.2, 0.015, 0.0024% respectively, per year.

Parents have a right to their own decisions, but retarding a child's growth because of a fear of something that's only 20x as likely as getting struck by lightning?

Personally, that seems literally insane.

If my child were to be killed by a driver, I would mourn for the rest of my life, but at least I'd know they lived in the time they had on this Earth.

I think that’s fair if personal action had no impact on the rates. Consider the possibility that these numbers are in part born from our own protections to those events. For example, I’ve taught my kids to look before crossing the street, what’s out for cars speeding on side streets and don’t run after toys rolling into the street. Without those guidelines, I’m certain they would have come close to injury or death.

Being struck by lightening is a poor comparison since that is almost entirely avoidable with actions that most people follow subconsciously: they don’t want to walk through a field in the pooring rain. Chance of death from being run over by a cruise ship is also low. People generally don’t want to go swimming where they are transiting. Do you encourage your kids the jump of the pier when the ship is docking?

Chance of death from being hit by a TVG is pretty low. They only run on tracks with protected right of way, so it’s difficult to find oneself on their tracks. Do you encourage your kids to climb that fence and walk those tracks?

Death from traffic is not quite the same, but similar.