> But there's little difference between hitting a traffic cone and hitting a small child.

I agree with some of what you have said, but this is the most bizarre statement I have read today.

There are probably hundreds (or more) traffic cones hit for every small child hit by a car, just because there are way more cars per day passing close to traffic cones than to children.

I personally have had my car hit by others 5 times without reporting it to my insurance company (car was parked, hit and run), as the damage was less than my deductible, and I opted to just live with a few dents. Estimating the number of times a car collides with anything per mile driven is very hard.