[Dwolb]

This description of the problem is very susceptible to framing. i.e. how you ask this question will determine the response you receive.

A couple of reframes for example:

Would you rather drive a road where you gain 5 minutes and increase your chance of death by 4?

Would you rather drive a road where you lose 25% of your travel time to obstacles and change your chance of dying from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 30,000?

I believe the US government does have guidelines for how much a human life is 'worth' (~10M I had thought...) [0]. It's one of the 'objective' calculations taken into account when analyzing these types of projects.

[0] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life