The Importance Of Fatalities In America

"In general, the efficient level of safety will not be perfect safety, because perfection is simply too costly to achieve” (pg. 16) Is flying really just too costly? What about too time consuming? Too inconvenient? Too…dumb? Some people may think so. Others are more worried about themselves; that entitles their time and things of that sort. Fatalities are 200 times higher for automobiles than for airlines, but people would rather ride in automobile because it’s…”easier”?
In the US, each year there are about 40,000 deaths per year in automobile accidents vs. about 200 in air transport. To put this in perspective, the chance of dying in an automobile accident is about 1000 times more than winning a typical state lottery in a year. The statistics are based upon the number of airplane crashes as a percent, in other words more people die as a result of automobile crashes per year as opposed to dying by an airplane crash. The survival rate is much lower for an airplane crash but airplanes don't crash as much as cars.
One word: scarcity. There is a scarcity of time, money, patience, many things. People are selfish and choose the more dangerous root because it is easier for them, more convenient. Yes, people want to be safe, but that is not their biggest concern. People are more concerned with getting to the grocery store in 10 minutes or saving money for going out to dinner that night. Of course no one wants to spend over $100 for a plane ticket but would you spent $100 to save your life? With gas prices increasing, it keeps making more and more sense to choose riding planes rather than automobiles, but no. I guess the cool thing to do these days is