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As a society we habituate to a horrific human toll as long as we don’t viscerally experience a short-term shock. The US has ~10 9/11s worth of traffic fatalitie

As a society we habituate to a horrific human toll as long as we don’t viscerally experience a short-term shock. The US has ~10 9/11s worth of traffic fatalities per year, but we aren’t flipping out and dedicating ourselves to rebuilding transportation infrastructure, because we just don’t care that much. I hope that we don’t get too complacent about opiate deaths and start thinking of this as normal. We do need a nationwide coordinated mobilization I think. I hope it happens. I think it will require pragmatic political leadership that treats this as a public health crisis rather than a job solely for law enforcement.

cuckcuckspruce 8y ago
>The US has ~10 9/11s worth of traffic fatalities per year, but we aren’t flipping out and dedicating ourselves to rebuilding transportation infrastructure, because we just don’t care that much. That's a pretty cynical way to look at it. I would imagine that part of the lack of response is due to the fact that most traffic fatalities are not intentionally caused and are diffuse (many deaths across time and space instead of in one big incident in a small geographic area).