Accepting US car standards would risk European lives

Re:Accepting US car standards would risk European lives by kelnos on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @04:16AM (#46132187)

I think that's a little bit of a weird way to look at the probabilities. Sure, for a one-off activity I might look at 1 in 7,700,000 and decide that's an acceptable risk. But many people in the US take several car rides per day.

At, say, 4 rides per day, that's about a 1 in 5300 chance of death over a single year. That's still small, but not that small. Someone in a decent-sized town or city could expect to lose someone they know once every few years with those odds.

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Re:Accepting US car standards would risk European lives by zmgsabst on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @04:56AM (#46132553)

We know what the rate of deaths are: 1 in 8000; roughly 40,000 over 320,000,000.

Slightly less than the rate of suicide; and slightly more than half the number of fentanyl deaths. And a smaller fraction of medical mistake deaths. (Of course, none of the risk is evenly distributed.)

As a systemic problem, I’m not convinced that cars are the worst. Or outside what we accept in several areas.

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Re:Accepting US car standards would risk European lives by bombcar on Wednesday December 03, 2025 @06:49AM (#46133420)

The non-even distribution is a key part of it. Fentanyl deaths don’t affect me if I don’t drug, and if 80% (made up number as example) of car fatalities involve drunk driving, it also factors out for most people.

If cars had a random chance to simply explode equivalent to the mortality rate in crashes, people would treat them Very Differently.

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