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Comment by bedobi | Hacker News Reader

guess what kills the most children, criminals or cars?

Exactly, what the hell is "not necessarily because of cars" supposed to mean? Or maybe it's a comment on how, despite cars being way more dangerous, parents over-focus on crime?

If only we made killing children with your car a crime.

I recently lived in Portland when a teen was killed by a car in the southeast part of the city. The guy fled back to Saudi Arabia and no semblance of justice occurred. In the real world, vehicular crimes are seen as just a part of life. Consider the common term "car accident" and the absolving of responsibility it implies.

Even your statement shows how deep the absolution of drivers is - a driver killed the kid. Though they’d face no consequences in the US either

How does the saying go? If you want to kill someone and get away with it, kill them with your car.

Alas. See the comment above, where a driver in a huge SUV got away scott-free for killing a child.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40644209

I don't think if I went bird hunting where kids play and shot a kid "by accident" I'd get away with it.

Compare also https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-t...

Intentionally killing children with your car is a crime. Playing with your phone while driving is "a tragic accident".

At a certain maturity, kids have developed mentally enough for cars to not be a threat to them. Criminals are a whole different problem.

Right, no teenagers or adults die by cars, for they have developed mentally enough for cars not to be a threat to them

…Except the 40 000 who do die by car, every single year, in the US alone. Countless more injured and permanently disabled. Meanwhile criminals are indeed a whole different problem. (an imaginary one)

Children, even teenagers, account for a very small portion of pedestrian deaths. Arguably this is because they're kept indoors, but the 20-25 age bracket is the second least likely to die as a pedestrian, despite being young and (stereotypically) dumb and reckless at that age. On the other hand, 25-35 are the most likely to get hit.

Some other interesting statistics: 25% of pedestrians killed were drunk, while only 19% of the time the driver was (these overlap, both drunk, in 6% of cases.) 3/4ths of pedestrian fatalities occur at night. 2/3rds don't occur in a crosswalk.

Take away: kids who don't drink, don't stay out at night and use crosswalks are significantly less likely to be hit.

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/pedestr...

https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/GHSA/Ped-Spotli...

this is victim blaming IMO. people get drunk. people go out at night. people cross streets. if the physical environment doesn't take the above into account, to the point where there are countless needless and preventable deaths, the correct thing to do is to fix the environment, not say people should have been more careful.

Victim blaming? I'm explaining that children are at less risk than the crude statistic would suggest. I think maybe you're mad about that because it undermines your intent to radically restructure society with this child pedestrian safety pretext.

What kind of criminal is out to kill kids?

It's more that as a society we have agreed to a certain amount of risk that cars bring, because they have some positive value ( risk to value ratio will be debated ).

Criminals bring 0 value and all risk. Criminals also do more than just murder.

Roads, cars and trucks bring a lot of value for the disabled, deliveries and emergency vehicles who really need them. What like 90% of vehicles and trips do not fit in any of those categories, and so bring zero of the value but all the harm.

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