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With some googling I found out that in the year 2000 15,517 people were murdered while 41,611 died in car accidents. That means that if we could prevent all car accidents the benefit in human lives would be almost three times greater.

You might only be driving 55 on a 50 mph zone, but a lot of people are driving much faster and statistics show it is fairly dangerous.

Where are these stastics that say ignoring the speed limit and driving the road for what it was built for is "fairly dangerous"? I seem to have found some statistics that claim quite the opposite(pdf warning).

Moreover, by your rationale, I shouldn't be allowed to eat butter or salt as more people die from heart attacks than from car accidents or murders combined. Or to flip it, since you'll likely try to spin this as something I'm doing to you; no one should be allowed to serve things containing cholesterol or salt.

-- ...only life can kill you

I don't understand people that think speed limits are moral imperatives that fall on the same line as murder or arson.

I don't think GP said anything similar to that statement

You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 55 in a 50 mile an hour zone.

Well, unless by driving recklessly you cause an accident and actually kill someone.

With some googling I found out that in the year 2000 15,517 people were murdered while 41,611 died in car accidents. That means that if we could prevent all car accidents the benefit in human lives would be almost three times greater.

You might only be driving 55 on a 50 mph zone, but a lot of people are driving much faster and statistics show it is fairly dangerous.

And as bad as 3000 deaths a month sounds, the part of that sample you don't mention are the number of people who go from point A to point B each day unscathed.

That's a horrible fallacy. Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't make it "highly unlikely." Reason.

BTW, I've got some bad news for you: There is a 1 in 96 chance that you will die in a car accident in your lifetime. The odds seem pretty gruesome to me... Do the math yourself: Population = 300,000,000 people; Deaths/year = 40,000 people/year; Life expectancy = 78.2 years. If your family has four members, then there is a 1 in 24 chance that one of you will die in a car accident during their lifetime.

"Ah, but you don't consider the people that DON'T die" sounds nice, until one of your family members or maybe even YOU are one of them.

You left out the rest like 16% 3rd degree burns, but oh well you must be a manager at McDonald's or something?

And As I've pointed out before, the severity of the injuries is irrelevant. If I try to juggle a chainsaw and chop off my leg, that's horrible, too. But it's my fault for not handling the chainsaw correctly. Just because it's a horrible injury doesn't suddenly make it the fault of the chainsaw manufacturer.

And, NO, I don't work for McDonalds. Never have.

So the real deal is this is was partly her fault and partly(mostly) McDonald's.

I disagree. It was Stella's careless handling of the coffee that caused the spill, and the spill caused the injury. Therefore, it was her fault.

Now if (for example) the McDonalds employee failed to properly secure the lid, and it spilled and cause Stella's injuries, then I would agree it was the employees fault. (Not necessarily "McDonalds" fault, unless they failed to properly train the employee.)

Either way the lawsuit was probably figured in as a risk worth taking. $2.7 million was a bargain for them if a better cup for elderly people cost them just 0.02 cents to produce.

Right. Then let's design and build a cup for left-handed people. And a cup for one-handed people. And a cup for clumsy people. And a cup for....

The standard cup was fine. IS fine. Only ONE person in 24 MILLION burned themselves with it. That was 70 people a year. For comparison, look at this: http://www.unitedjustice.com/death-statistics.html site : "On average, 90 people are killed every year in the U.S. by lightning." yes, that's right- you have a bigger chance of getting killed by lightning than of getting burned by McDonalds coffee.

So, please shut up about the coffee being too hot/dangerous.

9/11 killed less than half the number of people who are killed every day on our highways and streets.

Your numbers are wrong, by quite a lot.

About 3000 people died due to the terrorism on 9/11. On average, around 52 people die per day due to auto accidents in the US.

here's a sort of mortality table for the curious

Gee... when you look at how many people die from automobile accidents each day (An average of 114 people die each day in car crashes in the U.S.), 1-10 deaths per launch, caused by the resulting fallout, doesn't seem all that much.

I suppose it depends on what kind of spin the media puts on it...

According to:http://www.plu.edu/~gunvlnce/facts3.html

For 1998 Deaths due to guns Totalled 30,708:
17,424 were gun suicides
12,102 were gun homicides
866 were unintentional or accidental shootings
316 were of undetermined intent

Lets look at it again shall we?

From Joing Together the number for 1993-1999 are under 40K in '93 and under 30K in '99. Most gun deaths are due to suicide (58%). Intentional shooting ranks as 39% (11,071 including 270 police shootings) of gun deaths in 2000.

Your numbers are a bit off. A lot more so than I thought when I first started looking for them. In '99 there were 42,116 people killed in highway crashes More than have died from guns. Where are the people clamoring for Automotive control?

I think we're on different pages. Several people cited this excerpt after September 11.