> The 2009 Greenstreet Berman study, carried out by the UK government, showed that in the period between 2002 and 2007 the UK Furniture and Furnishings Fire Safety Regulations accounted for 54 fewer deaths per year, 780 fewer non-fatal casualties per year and 1065 fewer fires each year following the introduction of the UK furniture safety regulations in 1988.
That's an apples / oranges comparison unless we agree on an actuarial calculus for the value of saving an entire life vs. the cost of shortening a million lives by a day.
Funny thing about fires, though: they often forget to stop burning when they get to the kids' bedroom upstairs, or the wall of the nice old granny next door...
As a society, we generally try to strive for a higher standard than "The less cautious among us get what's coming to them."
We don't, for example, have the attitude "seatebelts are whatever, let speeding people get pulped." And there's a good history as to why we don't do that.
Even people with bad judgment deserve a shot at avoiding horrible death in a civilized society.
I'm currently working on minimizing the risks to life and limb associated with drunk driving, partially because I've known too many people dear to me who have suffered because of it to be comfortable with the notion "you deserve everything coming to you." So I think we may find ourselves at an "agree to disagree" place. ;)
You seem to be assuming that my friends were the ones who were doing the drunk driving, not the ones in the other lane of traffic when the drunk driver swerved.
In truth, they were both. I've known people who drove drunk and hurt others and I've known people who drove drunk and have been hurt and I know people who didn't drive drunk and were hurt by a drunk driver.
It's a systemic problem and requires a systemic solution. Personal responsibility is the can we kick when we're unwilling to face the need to change incentives and structures.
It's likely worse than that, because I suspect this study is biased towards flame retardants being effective.
It is true in a very narrow range of conditions a flame retardant can prevent combustion, but it's like an airbag that will only deploy for impacts between 15 and 17 MPH. In real world circumstances with real world combustion sources they don't make a difference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#Fire_safety_st...
With these particular statistics, the benefits of flame retardants vs. poisoning millions of people doesn't seem worth it.