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by Balero 1134 days ago
> You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text.

"Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people ages 1–54"[0]

I wonder if you speeding in your car increased the likely hood of death for someone more than collecting your son from a rumored school shooting. Not saying you were wrong to do that, obviously this is something that comes to the front of your mind when something is wrong at a school. The disconnect between risks we find acceptable, and those we don't is interesting though.

[0]https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index....

1 comments

Some enterprising individual should figure up how many highway miles driven with a kid in the car it takes to exceed the annual risk from school shootings. I bet it's not many, but nobody thinks a thing of driving their kids around.
USDOT says 1.34 deaths per 100,000,000 miles driven. Assuming 32mph average speed[1] that's 1 death per 2,332,089 hours driven.

There were 40 students killed in school shootings in 2022 [2]. Assuming 50M students and 2K hours/year in school that equates to 1 death per 2,500,000,000 hours spent in the classroom.

The difference is a factor of 1,072 meaning that if you drive with your kid for 2 hours, you have exposed them to a higher risk of dying in a traffic accident than an entire year of risk from school shootings.

Definitely a stat I'll keep in my back pocket.

[1] my ass [2] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year...