That cannot be properly evaluated without considering second and additional order effects, like everyone driving huge SUVs to fit these child seats. All else is never equal.
> western society has a problem of "safety at any cost"
No, I think just America. Europe isn't so safety crazed.
For instance, it's common for Europeans not to wear bicycle helmets.
> That cannot be properly evaluated without considering second and additional order effects, like everyone driving huge SUVs to fit these child seats. All else is never equal.
> > western society has a problem of "safety at any cost"
> No, I think just America. Europe isn't so safety crazed.
I would say that is a gross oversimplification. It depends a lot on country, on safety "area" etc.. For instance most European countries have much stricter laws around car safety (e.g. in Germany you have to get an extensive safety check every couple of years) and driver licences.
Regarding bicycle helmets I think this is much more a function of when the cycling culture developed in the country, e.g. in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark biking has been a common way of commuting for a long time (way before helmets came about) and helmets are not that common, while in Sweden for instance most cyclists were helmets.
Anecdotally it's most strongly driven by "competition" with cars:
- Small city -> Not that much traffic -> No helments
- Big city with lacking bike infrastructure/no strong biking culture -> A lot of close encounters with cars -> Helmets
- Big city with established biking culture -> No helmets
If you mean sport biking (race, mountainbike, long distance), then you are right that I didn't consider those.
The EU (generally speaking) tends to be more attentive to some more practical aspects of safety, as an other commenter noted periodical revisions/check of cars, or fire regulations tend to be much stricter than the US.
But - cannot say in other EU countries - here (Italy) we have our own forms of craziness.
Back to the children seats, we have now a new norm mandating an alarm (also via Bluetooth and/or SMS) on seats to prevent parents forgetting toddlers strapped to the seat and walking away after having parked the car.
Italian, not too bad on Google translate:
https://www.automobile.it/magazine/burocrazia/seggiolino-ant...
There were countrywide a very small number of child deaths for this reason (8 or 9 documented cases in the last 20 year or so), and while this is extremely sad it doesn't seem to me like it jutifies the provision.
For instance, it's common for Europeans not to wear bicycle helmets.
That doesn't hold for the UK. Maybe it's spreading.
There has been the occasional attempt to pass such a law in the past, but none were successful. Cyclist organisations are very averse to helmet laws, seeing them as marking cycling out as some unusually dangerous activity, which in turn has an inevitable negative effect on cyclist numbers.