Originally Posted by
VegasGambler
The reason that they still allow them is that they have determined that, while obviously it's dangerous, requiring people to buy a ticket for their infant would cause significantly more people to drive rather than fly, which is far more dangerous. There are actual numbers in some DoT (I think? or some other government organization?) study somewhere (they estimated how much more driving it would cause, and then from that estimated how many additional deaths out would cause to disallow lap infants).
You can probably find it if you Google hard enough.
I read a book once called, "You Are Not So Smart" that talked about all the poor/illogical choices people make and they opened by talking about the extra thousands of people that died on the roads post-9/11 since they were irrationally afraid of driving. Of course, fatalities (FAs, Pax, etc.) always get attention and we should always strive for zero but yeah, it's an incredibly safe mode of transportation in the US.