"Pete C." wrote in message

On that last part, I've seen at least four reports of houses leveled by
gas explosions on CNN.com in the last few weeks alone. Oddly enough, not
a single report of a house exploding from an electrical issue.

Sure, gas pops a couple of houses a year, but electrical fires are far more
common, just not as dramatic.. Same with oil burners, woodstoves, coal
stoves, etc. The fact that you hear of a house blowing up from gas shows
how rare it is if it makes more than the local news. How many people were
killed in traffic accidents this week? They are so common they don't even
make the local news. IIRC, there are still 40-50,0000 traffic deaths a
year, but no big outcry to fix anything.