I think when most people use "safe" in this context, they mean "comfortable" or "psychologically comfortable". Nobody enjoys sitting beside someone tweaking and shitting themselves, even if it's perfectly safe.
And besides the ones who are so anxious about driving that the rest of us know about it, there's probably a lot of people who have mild anxiety about driving but just suppress it, get through it, and/or minimize unnecessary driving, because you can't avoid driving where they live.
And, considering the risks, it's not an irrational fear. Perhaps it's us who don't mind driving and are acclimated to it who are the strange ones.
Heck, I do find myself feeling this way sometimes. I've been driving long enough to be pretty comfortable, but I do notice feeling a lot more comfortable on safer feeling roads, eg with slower speeds, frequented by less hurried drivers. I think everyone does, to some degree, otherwise complaining about the crazy drivers from the next state over wouldn't be such a universal pastime in America :)
We pretend the risk and the associated rational anxiety of driving doesn't exist because driving is so commonplace, but it's there and it's pretty big.
I don't ever mind public transport. I have used public transport in multiple areas of the planet.
There are two quips:
1. You have to be there in someone else's time. You can't have 5 or 10 or 30 minutes if something comes up.
2. What you say. I don't want to rub my body with people who are wearing dirty clothes, smell, and has god-knows-what liquid on their clothes who might choose to cough without using their hands. (This has happened to me) So, I avoid public transport where there is this kind of intermingling. Fine with me where there are upper classes or similar in transport and it is enforced strictly.
I have never seen someone pull out a gun, tweak out and rip out the hair of the girl sitting in front of them, or shit themselves, on an elevator. I have seen all of these on public transport in Seattle.
From another city, my younger brother was on the L in Chicago when a gun went off. Someone shot into the ceiling, no one got hurt, but holy hell idk if I could ride after that.
I still like the light rail in Seattle and am a massive supporter of public transport, but I understand people who won’t take it because of the psychological threats.
Majority of elevators I take tend to be open to the public -- car parks being a big one.
And I say this as someone who still takes public transport a lot, but it's increasingly less comfortable.
There's this cool thing you can do in the 21st century where if you go into Google maps, or Apple maps, or any other map app, you can check how long it takes to get to your destination
> 2. What you say. I don't want to rub my body with people who are wearing dirty clothes, smell, and has god-knows-what liquid on their clothes who might choose to cough without using their hands. (This has happened to me) So, I avoid public transport where there is this kind of intermingling. Fine with me where there are upper classes or similar in transport and it is enforced strictly.
Oh no! How will the upper class in every other society that uses public transit deal.
There is something to be said about fare enforcement, the homeless, and societal norms, but this certainly isn't it.