"Murder" is a strong and, I think, inappropriate word.

You are, of course, correct in the statement that a cost is applied to human life. Ford did this in the case of the Pinto fuel tank; the airlines do this whenever a safety related grounding is proposed, the EPA and OSHA (US government agency which is supposed to, but largely doesn't, enforce workplace safety regulations) do this for every proposed rule.

Safety costs serious money, and some of the events being regulated (or not regulated) for are extremely rare. No one is terribly worried about the next Chicxulub, because its likelihood in the next few centuries is quite low and its prevention would cost billions. People get crazy about SARS or West Nile, but continue to smoke. Go figure.

emc

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.

—Igor Sikorsky, reported in AOPA Pilot magazine February 2003.

In reply to Re^5: Projects where people can die by swampyankee
in thread Projects where people can die by cog

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