[tatsuke95]

>" Consider that among the top causes of death in the US are "accidents" (predominantly motor vehicles)"

If I have a higher-than-average chance of dying in an automobile accident in a specific country, that's good information to have. In fact, I want to know all the particularly common ways I could die somewhere, be it via car or mortar attack. I think that's a great way to compare countries and life expectancy. Maybe I miss your point?

[tptacek]

I'm not saying life expectancy tells you nothing, just that it doesn't tell you what a lot of people seem to think it tells you. If you got sick and had to pick a country to be treated in solely based on your health outcome, you'd be making a mistake to choose based on life expectancy. In the same vein: if you were picking countries based on quality of public transit nationwide, sure, life expectancy could be a counterintuitive and convoluted way to arrive at the right conclusion. But a look at an Amtrak schedule would tell you pretty much the same thing without the tea leaf reading. Everyone knows that Europe and Japan have denser public transit than the US.