Out of curiosity, how many people have to die or be maimed in a preventable situation -- due to an industry determining it's more cost effective to do so rather than properly protect people -- before it's appropriate to craft a regulatory response? Just ballpark it for me, maybe round to the nearest order of magnitude.

The regulations need to be reasonable (i.e., "no more cars allowed on the road" would prevent deaths, but isn't reasonable). And they should take previous regulations into account, to make sure that they don't cause more harm than good. For example, something I read a while ago is California auto shops are required by the fire department to not store used oil above ground (fire hazard), yet the EPA bans underground storage (risk of environmental leaks). So the fine you get from one agency or the other is now just a cost of doing business.