Originally Posted by mybodyismyown

I find it's even less confusing to people when we put this in terms of lives saved minus lives cost by each potential intervention. It's entirely possible, and it happens all the time, to guard so hyperactively against one risk that you incur much greater risks from the intervention than you ever did from the original risk.

TSA is just one example. Back in 2007, a group of economists estimated that TSA dissuaded 6% of would-be flyers who drove to their destinations instead. The cost in excess road deaths? Equivalent to four fully-loaded 747s crashing every year. TSA kills people. TSA kills even more people now that so many of us feel that we must drive to protect our bodies from unwanted sexual contact.

The FAA did a similar analysis in deciding not to force parents of children under 2 to buy an airline ticket and put the child in a belted car seat. Of course, the child is safer on an airplane in a car seat. But the child is far, far safer on an airplane and not in a car seat than he would be if his parents decided to drive to their destination with him in a car seat. A rule forcing parents to buy airline tickets for under 2's would kill 9 children on the road for every 1 life it saved in the air. Unlike the TSA, the FAA decided to make the call that would save lives.