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It’s just not a problem. And even if it were a problem it pales in comparison to the deaths and societal cost to driving. You’re thinking about 99.99999% proble

It’s just not a problem. And even if it were a problem it pales in comparison to the deaths and societal cost to driving. You’re thinking about 99.99999% problems and sacrificing common problems (kids being run over etc.).

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> You’re thinking about 99.99999% problems and sacrificing common problems (kids being run over etc.). Kids being run over is not a common problem, by any standard. You'd struggle to argue that it even qualified as "rare". It's more along the lines of "unheard of". The 2016 census reports the population of 0-19 year olds as 81,880,000. According to this article in US News ( https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/car-crashes-guns-killed-the-most-us-children-and-teens-in-2016 https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/... ), "motor vehicle crashes" are the leading cause of death in that age group. There were 4,074 such fatalities in 2016, making for an annual death rate of 0.005%. Every year, one in every 20,000 kids in America dies in a car crash. (Assuming 19-year-olds are "kids".) But "motor vehicle crashes" include cases where the child who died was a passenger in a vehicle that crashed, or where they were a passenger in a vehicle that was hit, or where they were driving a vehicle that crashed, or where they were driving a vehicle that was hit. NHTSA tells us that in 2016, there were just over 7,000 non-vehicle-occupant fatalities from motor vehicle crashes among all age groups combined. ( https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812456 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... ) This is about 19% of the total number of traffic fatalities for that year; if we apply that figure to our teen-and-under deaths, the number of kids getting run over in 2016 would be 770 out of almost 82 million kids. In other words, the annual rate of this problem occurring is estimated at 0.000009; it is, in your terminology, a 99.9991% problem. That's still about 90 times as common as a 99.99999% problem, but I have a sneaking suspicion you were just making that number up. To a first, second, third, and fourth approximation, kids in the United States don't get run over.
- foepys 4y ago
  You only talk about fatalities but people can get hit by cars without dying and be still in urgent need of an ambulance (often so they don't die later).
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    It's not going to change the conclusion unless you believe that death is a very rare outcome of being struck by a car. Think about it. Do you personally know of any occasion on which a child was run over? In what sense could it be a "common problem"?
    - foepys 4y ago
      I have myself witnessed a child being hit by a car and a few years back one died in my city. Both in school zones where cars sped through illegally. I'm in Germany with only 1/4 of the US car fatality rate per person.
- ericmay 4y ago
  If you were focusing on the numeric aspect of "kids getting run over" you largely missed the point. That you missed the point is reinforced by you focusing on the exact number of kids ran over versus general death of kids in car crashes, for example. > Every year, one in every 20,000 kids in America dies in a car crash. And I bet that 770 kids dying each year from being directly run over occurs 70x more often than someone dying because a doctor can't make it to the hospital in time. Really optimizing for an unimportant detail at the expense of the entire system.
msla 4y ago
> It’s just not a problem. From the other comments in the thread, it's a huge problem, and it's one that kills.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> You’re thinking about 99.99999% problems and sacrificing common problems (kids being run over etc.). Kids being run over is not a common problem, by any standard. You'd struggle to argue that it even qualified as "rare". It's more along the lines of "unheard of". The 2016 census reports the population of 0-19 year olds as 81,880,000. According to this article in US News ( https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/car-crashes-guns-killed-the-most-us-children-and-teens-in-2016 https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2018-12-19/... ), "motor vehicle crashes" are the leading cause of death in that age group. There were 4,074 such fatalities in 2016, making for an annual death rate of 0.005%. Every year, one in every 20,000 kids in America dies in a car crash. (Assuming 19-year-olds are "kids".) But "motor vehicle crashes" include cases where the child who died was a passenger in a vehicle that crashed, or where they were a passenger in a vehicle that was hit, or where they were driving a vehicle that crashed, or where they were driving a vehicle that was hit. NHTSA tells us that in 2016, there were just over 7,000 non-vehicle-occupant fatalities from motor vehicle crashes among all age groups combined. ( https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812456 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... ) This is about 19% of the total number of traffic fatalities for that year; if we apply that figure to our teen-and-under deaths, the number of kids getting run over in 2016 would be 770 out of almost 82 million kids. In other words, the annual rate of this problem occurring is estimated at 0.000009; it is, in your terminology, a 99.9991% problem. That's still about 90 times as common as a 99.99999% problem, but I have a sneaking suspicion you were just making that number up. To a first, second, third, and fourth approximation, kids in the United States don't get run over.

foepys 4y ago
You only talk about fatalities but people can get hit by cars without dying and be still in urgent need of an ambulance (often so they don't die later).
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  It's not going to change the conclusion unless you believe that death is a very rare outcome of being struck by a car. Think about it. Do you personally know of any occasion on which a child was run over? In what sense could it be a "common problem"?
  - foepys 4y ago
    I have myself witnessed a child being hit by a car and a few years back one died in my city. Both in school zones where cars sped through illegally. I'm in Germany with only 1/4 of the US car fatality rate per person.
ericmay 4y ago
If you were focusing on the numeric aspect of "kids getting run over" you largely missed the point. That you missed the point is reinforced by you focusing on the exact number of kids ran over versus general death of kids in car crashes, for example. > Every year, one in every 20,000 kids in America dies in a car crash. And I bet that 770 kids dying each year from being directly run over occurs 70x more often than someone dying because a doctor can't make it to the hospital in time. Really optimizing for an unimportant detail at the expense of the entire system.

msla 4y ago

> It’s just not a problem. From the other comments in the thread, it's a huge problem, and it's one that kills.