Quote:
Originally Posted by ProfCrash
Hehehehe
I know. I was the first kid in the family to have a car seat, my two older brothers did not. I slept in the back of the station wagon without a seat bel, the seats were folded down so we could sleep comfortably. I didn't own a bike helmet until I was 15 and a summer camp required one. It is a long list of no nos today.
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The problem is that low probability events are very hard for us to handle as individuals. The chances of being killed or injured because of not wearing a seat belt, or not wearing a cycle helmet is very, very small for any individual journey, and quite small for any individual.
But when you have tens or hundreds of millions of people, and billions of journeys, that small probability turns into thousands of deaths per year.
The small changes in safety legislation concerning cars and roads in the UK has, over the past 40 years, reduced deaths and total injuries from 7,499 (356,000) in 1970 to 1901 (203,950) in 2011, while motor traffic miles have gone from 124.6 billion miles to 303.8 billion miles.
In total, it has reduced the chance of death from one every 16.6 million miles to one every 159.8 million miles. It's almost ten times safer (in terms of risk of dying) on UK roads now than it was 40 years ago!
Even counting any injury, it's gone from one every 350,000 miles to one every 1.49 million miles. Over four times safer.
Wow. I knew it had got better, but until I looked up these figures I didn't realise how much better it had become.
Coke Zero #1 in my cup.