If it happens during your lifetime, it will likely only be once. So 'it never happened to me before' is not a very good way to reason about this sort of risk.
That's kind of an amusing way to put it: "Why would I prepare for a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe? It never happened to me before."
Please recall that when the last "big one" happened in the Bay Area, the outcome was very few deaths (63 people died), but decades of economic problems. 500 people die in car accidents in the bay area every year. It would seem that fatalities from earthquakes aren't a good model for making rational decisions about what is likely to affect you in your lifetime.
You wear your seat belt, right? That's obviously a risk you already take seriously, so I'd not take it for a bound on tolerance for risk.
Cars pretty much define my bounds on tolerance for risk.