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Comment by sallveburrpi | Hacker News Reader

Zero degree of impairment is only possible if we don’t have access to 2 tons of murder box. I think the way cars dominate roads and our public spaces and how they are being used is inherently dangerous.

I know this is going to get downvoted by people who cant imagine an alternative but it’s possible all the same.

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I borderline want a conscription-style policy, where young adults are required to live in Boston, Philadelphia, NYC, DC, Seattle, or Chicago, car-free for a year. Americans’ inability to even imagine a world where a car isn’t the way to get around is really a problem.

Some of those cities you listed have rather high death rates for young adults for reasons unrelated to cars.

I don't think you understand what "inherently dangerous" actually means.

FYI murder requires intent, otherwise it is just manslaughter. Your indoctrination is showing by your turns of phrase.

Inherently means “qualities or traits that are intrinsic and fundamental, not added or external”

So yea cars are inherently dangerous.

I’m not sure who you think I’m indoctrinated by but around 3000 people are killed every year in my country by cars.

Meanwhile around 200 people are murdered each year.

I’ll give you one try to guess which one dominates the newspapers and public discourse.

And you tell me something about indoctrination, real funny

Cars are inherently dangerous, though. They're multi ton hunks of metal moving at high speeds. That's dangerous from literally any angle you can imagine.

There are ways to make it less dangerous, sure. But they're never 100% safe. Which makes them, by definition, inherently dangerous. That's... What those words mean.

So long as you’re also willing to label swimming pools, grapes, and crayons as, by definition, inherently dangerous on account of not being able to be made 100% safe, then I’ll at least grant you a level of consistency in your argument.

Swimming pools are absolutely inherently dangerous. Why do you think lifeguards are a thing?

Like, really man? If you can't even recognize as dangerous the one activity that famously requires someone specifically trained to save people to be present, then I'm happy to end this conversation right here. It's clearly just a waste of time all around. I just hope there's no one in your life depending on you to judge what's safe and what's not.

No lifeguard on duty. Swim at your own risk.

Comparing "100% safe" vs the danger cars represent is so ridiculous I have to question if you're kidding? We're talking 40,000 people killed every year in the US alone on account of traffic accidents. And you're talking about grapes and crayons?

And swimming pools are pretty dangerous though? There are around 4,500 drowning deaths per year in the US, so on the order of 10x fewer than due to car accidents, but still quite a lot.

GP is the one who argued “not 100% safe” as evidence of inherently unsafe.

I agree with you that it’s a comically wrong threshold, which is why I offered that series that was progressively more safe but never 100% safe as examples against that line of reasoning.

Make the threshold "won't kill you 99.9% of the time, even if you have little to no training at that specific activity" then. Is that specific enough for you to engage meaningfully with the conversation at hand, and show why you think driving is at the same side of this threshold as eating grapes or using crayons?

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