Even driving the speed limit is only acceptable in ideal conditions. Driving at those speeds is illegal in rain, fog, snow, etc as it puts others at what is considered an unacceptable risk.
You and many others may decide to ignore public safety and the law, but that doesn’t somehow make it safe. While you personally may feel homicide is a reasonable trade off for convince, don’t assume everyone that happens to be near a public street and who’s life your willing to sacrifice, agrees with you. The occasional person killed in their own homes might have considered it a reasonable trade off, but we can’t ask them. EX: https://www.wfft.com/content/news/Woman-in-Fort-Wayne-killed...
Therefore some levels of risk being acceptable is in no way a counter argument.
Since you agree that one cannot avoid creating risk, what is the logical value of introducing the idea that risk is "harm"? You can just as well talk of unacceptable risks, rather than "unacceptable harms". Further, you apparently agree that all "accidents" result from parties taking a risk, whether small acceptable risks (more rarely, no doubt) or by larger unacceptable risks. So what point are you left making about the existence of "accidents"?
I am not introducing the idea that risk is harm, I am acknowledging that society has agreed that risk is harm most clearly in the case of Endangerment laws. Therefore that must extend to all levels of risk not simply the most extreme cases. Therefore someone deciding to put others at risk must as generally agreed by society be seen as willingly doing harm to others.
As to “accidents” the outcome may have been undesirable by the person at fault by speeding, failing to maintain proper distance, failing to maintain your car, driving in unsafe conditions, driving when you’re incapable of maintaining control etc are hardly accidental. Their the result of deliberate risk taking with others lives. When you anti up the health and safety of pedestrians you can’t then say their death was anything but your fault.
That said, sure their might be a few hundred actual accidental deaths in the US from manufacturing defects, or undiagnosed medical conditions. But, calling a drunk driver hitting someone by going down the highway in the wrong direction an accident is a completely meaningless, at that point just call it a bad thing and move on.
Your argument boils down to saying it’s ok to play Russian Roulette with unwilling people if their is X chambers in the gun, but not ok if their is X-1 chambers in the gun. I am saying it’s never ok to do so but there is a polite agreement where people ignore low levels of harm based on a host of factors.
This is consistent with events that have already happened and events that have yet to happen. You can reasonably argue the risk was low for events that didn’t happen, as in the building was strong enough see it’s still standing. In that case speeding cameras should be legally different than a cop pulling someone over. The cop is stopping you from speeding, but the camera doesn’t.
On the other hand if risk is inherently a harm then past or future harm is irrelevant. Which is how things treated, you can’t argue the outcome when you have put others at risk.
1. People do indeed willingly put themselves at risk by driving on a public road, which was in the same list with the cosmetic surgeon. And doing so also puts others at risk.
2. The degree of risk is what matters. Ergo while both obeying the speed limit and driving 200 mph (assuming it was possible) puts others at risk, the latter risk is considered to high a degree.
It is not a fundamental choice between risk and no risk, but between unacceptably-high risk and acceptable risk.