I heard about that one too, very unique and weird for sure! But we could go through the stories of each of the few hundred fatalities that happened on public transit last year, and it wouldn’t even be a blip compared to the tens of thousands of people killed in gruesome accidents in cars. Incidentally I still remember the description of Paul Walker’s death for kinda the same reason that subway chainsaws and necrophilia are so memorable… it was freaky.

Except that wasn't a fatality. How often do people get robbed while driving in the highway.

For that matter, how many who came to harm on the highway were speeding vs random subway assaults.

People get robbed at gas stations, convenience stores, parking lots, and streets at fairly high numbers. I’m not sure what we’re comparing or debating here, but does your example actually count as a “robbery” if they died first? Would it not have happened if they hadn’t died? The anecdote you brought doesn’t seem to reflect on safety at all, it’s unclear what relevance it has.

Speed is absolutely a huge factor in driving injuries, one of the biggest. Again not sure how or even why to compare that to assaults on the subway, but googling briefly, the result I got suggests there were around 2k reported assaults of any kind. It’s a drop next to the nearly 3M ER visits, which may leave out large numbers of unreported, uninsured, or less serious injuries.

> People get robbed at gas stations, convenience stores, parking lots, and streets at fairly high numbers

Not where I live. the comparison/debate is:

> In contrast, the transit systems I've seen in Europe and Asia appear well maintained, clean, and relatively safe.

I think the point is, although (public) necrophilia is rare, so presumably is access to dead bodies, so the fact this happened is telling.

> does your example actually count as a “robbery” if they died first?

Of course it fucking does. picking someone's pockets is also robbery even if no confrontation is involved, and I'm pretty happy this guy is being charged with "attempted rape"; the fact the guy was dead doesn't make it not rape.

> The anecdote you brought doesn’t seem to reflect on safety

you don't see a correlation between safety, and the presence of people you cannot trust to be around?

> speed is absolutely a huge factor in driving injuries, one of the biggest. Again not sure how or even why to compare that to assaults on the subway

Speed, or speeding i.e. inappropriate levels of speed. The comparison is that an individual can control their speed, and the authorities can police it. There's not much you can do if you run into the wrong person on the subway.

Sure people have the option to control their own speed, and authorities can police speeders. The accident rate we have already accounts for that. Speeders are still dying, and they’re taking out more non-speeders with them than the total number of public transit deaths, by multiples.

Still not sure what the argument even here is. You’re being pretty forceful about one single, weird incident. Fine, but the fact of the matter is that driving in cars is causing a lot more injury and death than public transit, by several orders of magnitude.