The new phrase is "acceptable losses". If some important social goal can be accomplished at the cost of some lives, that's acceptable. That reasoning has been applied to COVID.[1][2] A China-style lockdown reduces deaths to a very low level, but the impact on GDP is unacceptable to most of the rest of the world. Here, it's being applied to bicyclists. Because more people of color are cited for not wearing a helmet, it's more important to eliminate that discrimination than to save a few lives.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7255398/

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/28/covid-who-i...