Deaths and injuries don’t “continue” to rise. They’ve been falling dramatically since the 80s. They’ll continue to do so because of safety technologies like rear cameras, blind spot monitoring, lane departure detection, etc.
My balance is based on my personal values and risk assessment. I don’t fear injuries or death when I get on the road. Nor do I fear it when walking or on my bicycle. Overall the system is pretty safe and I like my modern conveniences. My point is simply to say that perfect safety isn’t a realistic or desirable goal since the returns for the risks are high.
I’m not sure why you put “continue” in quotes when my comment never included the word continue. You are correct that deaths for motor vehicle occupants are going down due to safety features specifically designed to keep the occupants safe. But car related deaths for people outside of cars is trending up and is getting grimly close to double what it was just a little over 10 years ago[0][1]
>Planes also promise fast travel times, but if a plane crashes, we heavily investigate the cause and figure out a solution so it doesn’t occur again. The USA experiences the equivalent of over 100 Boeing 747 plane crashes a year(and rising), counting only deaths due to traffic crashes. The number spikes significantly higher when you factor in people with severe injuries who will never fully recover(think: losing arms, legs, brain damage,etc..).
>Assuming speed limits stay the same, but deaths and injuries _continue_ to rise, at what point would you say we have a ‘bad balance’ and should adjust? What is your ‘balance’ based on? Is there some ratio of VMT(vehicle miles traveled) to occurrences of deaths and dismemberment that you keep in mind?
Apologies! I gave a hypothetical scenario as part of a question, that also unfortunately happened to be true when accounting for occupants outside of vehicles. I didn’t mean for you(or the OP) to interpret the scenario as me stating it as a matter of fact and quote it in a rebuttal. I’ll try and make hypotheticals like that a bit clearer in the future to avoid confusing people.
My balance is based on my personal values and risk assessment. I don’t fear injuries or death when I get on the road. Nor do I fear it when walking or on my bicycle. Overall the system is pretty safe and I like my modern conveniences. My point is simply to say that perfect safety isn’t a realistic or desirable goal since the returns for the risks are high.