How many deaths aren't too many then?
It's a really good question but ultimately its unanswerable. Zero is impossible, millions is unacceptable.
The safety industry, like the racism and sexism and LGBT industries, has won all the major battles. Its the same with any process improvement initiative, they deliver mesurable and meaningful results at their inception but quickly the results drop off as the cost, effort and inconvenience increase exponentially.
But, back to acceptable numbers, this is not an alien concept. Look at the Covid, or any, vaccine. It's known that a certain number of people will die as a direct result of the vaccine but many, many more will be saved.
It is a calculation that already exists.
It's an often quoted truism that changing a light bulb in the NHS costs £75, how much of this is down H&S, Approved Contractor status, DBS checks. All for vanishingly small risks.
Not just light bulbs but all other services carry the Safety surcharge, how many more lives could be saved by the NHS if they weren't spending money trying to avoid otherwise miniscule safety risks.
Why shouldn't we strive to prevent deaths on the roads?
We should, should we ban driving to achieve it?
