I’m sure most people are aware that the difference in danger is quite large but maybe not just how absurdly large.
Sharks kill about 10 people per year.
For cars the number is 1,670,000 deaths. Every year.
As a point of comparison, in 2025, about 250k people were killed in armed conflicts, which was the highest number in decades.
A lot of people think it’s weird to hate cars as much as I do. But they are quantitatively in a similar category as the Holocaust in terms of how many people they kill. From the perspective, it seems a bit crazy not to hate them.
One thing I learned in my journey to power a home and drive an electric car is that automobiles, even small “slow” cars, are thr most powerful thing that most people ever personally own. A firearm will accelerate a 7.5 gram projectile up to 425 meters per second. But my car will accelrate 1600 kg up to 44 meters per second and I can just take it wherever I want. I could even get a larger, faster one if I wanted and nobody would care.
Unfortunately, evil people are starting to realize that heavy machinery is a far more deadly weapon than firearms in untrained hands. Guns may be for killing, but their chief merit is that they are designed to be reusable and at range, intended to encourage trained soldiers to fight in relative safety for many days.
The people taking cars and ramming into parades? They don’t want to live, so they can use an extremely powerful weapon, no skill required. And this tool is everywhere, just barely regulated.
This is an important issue. People get upset when I bring this up because usually they’re angry and they want to punish someone after these events, so they want to make it about immigrants, or fascists, or terrorists or whoever. But those people exist and frankly you are not going to get rid of them without doing something even worse than what they did.
The proper solution is to ensure that there is always physical separation between large groups of pedestrians and cars so that these ramming attacks simply cannot take place. Some well-placed bollards are all it takes.
I am somewhat disturbed by how right you are about this. Car sales estimates are 90-100 million new cars per year, so assuming we’re not putting 99 million new cars on the road every year, we’re destroying a lot more than we’re making. I’m not even gonna look at the numbers for sharks cuz I know it’ll make me big sad.
I want us to redefine “pro-life” to mean pro-urbanism, pro-renewables, and pro-universal-healthcare. Just those 3 things would make for such a dramatic increase in life expectancy and fall in child mortality, it’s crazy.
I think both metrics would tell you different things. Even unadjusted it gives you an idea about which thing you should be concerned about addressing and reducing your own risk or the risk of those you care about.
Plus, I don’t have exposure data like that to make the comparison. If you do then it would certainly be interesting to see.
This was exactly my thought. Like I grew up by the ocean where lots of people swam and there were sharks. Did car deaths outnumber shark deaths? Of course. Was it 6 orders of magnitude as much? Not even close lmao.
I’m sure most people are aware that the difference in danger is quite large but maybe not just how absurdly large.
Sharks kill about 10 people per year.
For cars the number is 1,670,000 deaths. Every year.
As a point of comparison, in 2025, about 250k people were killed in armed conflicts, which was the highest number in decades.
A lot of people think it’s weird to hate cars as much as I do. But they are quantitatively in a similar category as the Holocaust in terms of how many people they kill. From the perspective, it seems a bit crazy not to hate them.
Sources: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692324000267 https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/yearly-worldwide-summary/ https://www.npr.org/2026/06/09/nx-s1-5850355/data-highest-conflicts-iran-israel-ukraine-russia-world-war-ii
One thing I learned in my journey to power a home and drive an electric car is that automobiles, even small “slow” cars, are thr most powerful thing that most people ever personally own. A firearm will accelerate a 7.5 gram projectile up to 425 meters per second. But my car will accelrate 1600 kg up to 44 meters per second and I can just take it wherever I want. I could even get a larger, faster one if I wanted and nobody would care.
Unfortunately, evil people are starting to realize that heavy machinery is a far more deadly weapon than firearms in untrained hands. Guns may be for killing, but their chief merit is that they are designed to be reusable and at range, intended to encourage trained soldiers to fight in relative safety for many days.
The people taking cars and ramming into parades? They don’t want to live, so they can use an extremely powerful weapon, no skill required. And this tool is everywhere, just barely regulated.
This is an important issue. People get upset when I bring this up because usually they’re angry and they want to punish someone after these events, so they want to make it about immigrants, or fascists, or terrorists or whoever. But those people exist and frankly you are not going to get rid of them without doing something even worse than what they did.
The proper solution is to ensure that there is always physical separation between large groups of pedestrians and cars so that these ramming attacks simply cannot take place. Some well-placed bollards are all it takes.
Its also very easy to kill someone with a car “aCciDenTaLly” and get away with it, maybe have to pay a ticket.
Yeah. I know someone who was hit by a car at low speeds and survived but they still received a life-changing injury.
Thats the other thing. Doesn’t have to kill to ruin a life. :-(
I’d ask if you come from [email protected] but I think we both know the answer is yes.
Me too.
I’ve always felt this way but that community has been huge for making me realize that a lot of other people feel the same way too!
Also, in both cases many more are killed by humans than the other way around.
I am somewhat disturbed by how right you are about this. Car sales estimates are 90-100 million new cars per year, so assuming we’re not putting 99 million new cars on the road every year, we’re destroying a lot more than we’re making. I’m not even gonna look at the numbers for sharks cuz I know it’ll make me big sad.
Watch this and be not so sad…
https://youtu.be/5GRp7NoCWiA
In case you are paranoid from the thumbnail, no one gets even close to getting hurt, including the sharks.
And yet people think I’m crazy for hating people as much as I do.
I’m the one that’s sick apparently not the world.
I want us to redefine “pro-life” to mean pro-urbanism, pro-renewables, and pro-universal-healthcare. Just those 3 things would make for such a dramatic increase in life expectancy and fall in child mortality, it’s crazy.
Great idea!
While I don’t disagree much, let’s not be silly. The numbers need to be divided by hours of exposure.
I think both metrics would tell you different things. Even unadjusted it gives you an idea about which thing you should be concerned about addressing and reducing your own risk or the risk of those you care about.
Plus, I don’t have exposure data like that to make the comparison. If you do then it would certainly be interesting to see.
This was exactly my thought. Like I grew up by the ocean where lots of people swam and there were sharks. Did car deaths outnumber shark deaths? Of course. Was it 6 orders of magnitude as much? Not even close lmao.
#theydidthemath