On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 11:32:55 -0400, micky wrote:

I'm not sure that's true. Deaths were about 50,000 a year for a long
time, but the institution of seat belts, padded dash, dual brakes,
crumple zones, shoulder harnesses, airbags, lower speed limit** and some
things I forget lowered the number to 35,000 a year even as the number
of people driving increased with the increase in population and the
number of miles increased at least that much.

What are the fatalities now? You're concerned about accidents, but
accidents increase and decrrease as fatalities do, even if the
correlation is not 1. And fatalities are more important than
accidents, especially 100 dolllar dents,

There is no need to add second-order issues such as injuries or
fatalities to the equation because the *accident* is what matters.

We all know that nothing is simple, but, accident statistics in the USA
are reliable, and pretty simple to compile (most states have a reporting
requirement, for example).

Injuries and fatalities add a second (third and forth) order of confusion
to the mix, and yet, they add no value whatsoever because the paradox is
looking for *accidents*, not fatalities.

If people want to look at fatalities, and to ignore accidents, then we
can conclude that cellphones actually *save* lives because they get help
quickly, and they allow GPS routing to the hospital, and they allow
Google Traffic to route traffic away from the accident, etc.

So, why would you want to confuse a simple issue with fatalities and
injuries when the only result would be confusion and the lack of any
clarity if we did?

Keeping it simple and reliable:
1. We all believe cellphone use is distracting, and,
2. We all believe that distracted driving can cause accidents, and,
3. We all know cellphone ownership has shot off the charts in the past
few year, so,

The paradox is:
Q: Where are the accidents?