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by timewizard 397 days ago
> Riding in your car is likely the most dangerous thing you'll do

Not even remotely close. Anytime you elevate your feet more than 6' of the ground you can fall and kill yourself. This is 2x more common than vehicle fatalities and is in the category of "accidental self inflicted injury." The third most common cause of death. Vehicles are like #11. You're more likely to commit suicide than die in a car accident.
1 comments
vel0city 397 days ago
Sorry, I meant to add "in any given day" in that.

I'm in my car multiple times a day. I'm probably only 6'+ off the ground once a month or so. And I do agree in any given situation I'm more likely to be seriously injured using a power tool than I am driving, but once again I rarely use those while I'm in a car several times a day.

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timewizard 397 days ago
> I'm probably only 6'+ off the ground once a month or so

Do you never take the stairs?

> but once again I rarely use those while I'm in a car several times a day.

Which is why your car has a built in safety system and your power drill doesn't. The majority of fatal accidents involve drugs or alcohol. 15% are motorcycles and 15% are pedestrians. We see all miles as "passenger miles" in a vehicle but there are "inebriated passenger miles" and "sober passenger miles" with wildly different expectations between them.

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vel0city 396 days ago
> Do you never take the stairs?

Not daily (often not even weekly), and a lot of the stairs I do take have regular landings. I work from home, live in a one-story home, stores around me are often on the ground floor, etc. I figured your 6' off the ground was mostly focused on things like working on a roof, climbing ladders, being in a bucket lift, being on scaffolds, being near ledges, etc. But yes, stairs do cause a lot of injuries. Nowhere near as many deaths as automobiles though, and usually fewer injuries. So even climbing stairs is less risky than being around automobiles.

> The majority of fatal accidents involve drugs or alcohol

You don't have to be the drunk one to be the fatality in a collision involving alcohol. Once again, acting like if you do everything right, you'll be fine. Even if you're a perfect driver, you're surrounded by imperfect ones.

15% being pedestrians doesn't mean driving the car is safe, it's still an injury related to a dangerous task of driving a car. But I guess you're of the mindset as long as you aren't the one getting hurt its somehow OK?

But in the end, we're still just splitting hairs here. Operating and being around automobiles is a risky thing practically all Americans do without even thinking about the safety of it, and for a lot of people it is the least safe thing they'll do that day. 40,000 people a year die from automobiles and well over a million get injured.

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