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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

The one thing that opened my eyes about this view of safety is living in a developing country.

Riding a motorcycle without helmets, kids on their laps, cars without seatbelts, makeshift trucks with cargo randomly stacked and not strapped down.

They are completely oblivious to the safety risks. But you know what? 99% of the time it doesn't matter. They live long and healthy lives.

I get the sense the West has progressively improved safety to the point that even small incremental improvements are viewed as "you'll be dead without them".

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The ones that don't die or get permanently maimed in an accident live long and healthy lives, you mean. Which is still a very large majority, sure, but dying from a road accident is still a way more common way to die in those countries (7-15 times more likely than where I live), and it's a sudden death that can happen to anyone of any age. A kid needlessly dying because his parent irresponsibly carried her on their lap is such a waste of a life.

One of the wildest examples of literal survivorship bias I’ve ever heard

It's not. Even with their lack of concern around safety the chances of dying in a motor vehicle wreck are almost nil.

Like I said, in the West, people are so concerned about safety they loose all sense of relativeness. Saying that "wow, your car doesn't have airbags, you're as good as dead" is a ridiculous statement.

What are you talking about? Hitting your head really hard can permanently injure you, or kill you.

Sure, but what are the chances of getting into a crash where an air bag would make a difference?

A million to one? Less?

It's not that airbags aren't more safe, it's that they protect you from a risk with a very low probability.

Yet people act like you're reckless for driving a vehicle without them. It's a lack of understanding of probabilities. Humans routinely focus on a small risk while ignoring larger risks.

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