Sure it’s combinatorial in any specific instance, but you can still identify how much each individual root cause contributed to the final outcome and then alter

Sure it’s combinatorial in any specific instance, but you can still identify how much each individual root cause contributed to the final outcome and then alter outcomes in aggregate that way. For your example, if texting and driving is associated with 80% of pedestrian collisions but a drunk pedestrian is only associated with 5% of such collisions, you can probabilistically influence most potential outcomes by focusing your effort on the texting-while-driving root cause.