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Comment by raldi | Hacker News Reader

How can you be 100% sure a bus driver won't crash into you when you're crossing the street?

Would you therefore avoid streets?

The difference is that I need to trust over two billion people [1] not to disable my fire alarm. It's rather fallacious to compare this number with the number of bus drivers I interact with.

[1] http://phys.org/news/2011-01-internet-users-worldwide-billio...

What are the chances some anonymous kid will cut the brakes just for giggles? 0.

What are the chance sone anonymous kid will cut your fire alarm just for giggles? Pretty high.

Just take a look at 4chan and Reddit messing with people's internet security cameras.

> What are the chance sone anonymous kid will cut your fire alarm just for giggles? Pretty high

I guess that's where we disagree; I would have said, "Less than the chances of getting hit by a bus on the way to work."

When I was a kid someone slashed the tires and cut the brakes of all the school buses. Even if it was to get out of school, that's a very fine line between "just for a giggles" so while the probability may be small it's certainly nonzero. I would put the probability of your two identified events at closer to each other than you'd both expect and hope.

We're not talking about crossing the street, which is pretty unavoidable.

We're talking about an expensive gadget that introduces new risks, for a questionable return.

Probably just wait until the bus has stopped.

That the bus has stopped is not a guarantee that it won't suddenly lurch forward and hit you.

Yeah, you can't be 100% sure there's not another bus right behind it, hidden from view but headed right for it, out of control and with broken brake lines.

What's the lurch distance?

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