Motor-vehicle crashes account for 20%[1] of child and adolescent deaths in the US.

I'm not nearly as terrified of strangers or homeless drug users as the legion of SUV drivers scrolling on their cell phones. Distracted drivers are several orders of magnitude more dangerous and several orders of magnitude more common.

[1] from 2016 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6637963/

>Motor-vehicle crashes account for 20%[1] of child and adolescent deaths in the US.

Yep, 20% of something that almost never happens. .025% of adolescents die each year, .005% of them due to motor vehicle crashes. Further, the paper suggests most of adolescent vehicle deaths happen as passengers and/or drivers.

Note that this number only includes fatalities. Injuries are typically a couple orders of magnitude more common than fatalities (both for bystanders and occupants) but they are harder to count as they are not tracked as consistently. Besides the lasting damage, in a place like the US they can be financially ruinous for a family.

(I would be interested in statistics that break out bystander vs occupant and injuries as well if you know of any.)

Finally, I'm not quite sure what your point is with respect to the overall fatality rate of adolescents. It should not be particularly surprising that the vast majority of children survive into adulthood in modern times, but that doesn't mean it's not worth continuing to take precautions against the most common sources of injury and death.

I've been involved in various "free-range kids" groups and kid-friendly maker spaces where children can learn to responsibly use power tools. But I've never met a parent who decided not to bother protecting their kids from the most common sources of injury or death just because childhood deaths "almost never happen". Frankly I'm not sure I'd let someone with such an interpretation of statistics anywhere near either kids or power tools.

>Finally, I'm not quite sure what your point is with respect to the overall fatality rate of adolescents.

By saying "20% of adolescent fatalities are to vehicles" you make it seem like a terrifying threat. It's not. Certainly not worth keeping your child from walking outside.

You're involved in groups that teach kids to use power tools safely. As in you let them use power tools despite there still being a risk after taking such a class. Do the same with regards to vehicles. Teach them how to stay safe as a pedestrian, passenger, and driver.