So you're in favor of banning any car with more than 200BHP? And lets ban all the other dangerous shit (skates, bicycles, open fires,...). Cause its ok in the name of safety.
Talk about a huge leap. "It's ok for a person to elect to avoid a dog they do not trust" => "Ergo, we should ban fast cars, skates, bicycles, fires..."
What, do you think we should FORCE people to hang around suspicious dogs or something? So the dog doesn't get lonely, perhaps?
Bicycles are not dangerous. Skates and racing bicycles are only dangerous to their riders. Open fires are not dangerous at all. I've been making/playing with camp fires since I was 1 year old, and I can tell you that a game of soccer is far more dangerous. Of course this doesn't go for open fires in a forest and yes I think those should be banned (and are).
And yes, I'm in favour of physically limiting cars to the maximum allowed speed (or just over).
There - it says that more than 20 times more people got killed (750 in 2005!!!) from performing an in your opinion safe activities than from aggressive dogs.
I really apologize if I'm bashing you too much - but this is a perfect case of primal fear overcoming rational reason and I expect people here to be open towards other people pointing out their different POV.
Comparing the total deaths caused by two different activities is nonsensical. A comparison that makes sense is deaths caused per minute of the activity.
Whether cycling is safe depends on whether you live in a cyclist friendly or cyclist hostile country. It is also known that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks in expected life span: http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info:doi/10.1289/ehp.0901...
In the Netherlands there are about 1.6 deaths per 100 million kilometers cycled (that number in the US is about 10x as large). If we generously assume an average velocity of 20 km/h, that's 3*10^6 hours of cycling giving on average 1 death. The human life span is about 10^6 hours. So even if you cycled day and night for your entire life, the probability of dying in a cycling accident would be about 30%. And note that only tourists wear helmets in the Netherlands, wearing a helmet is not worth the additional safety.
But really the important point is that when you're cycling you are taking the risk. Cyclists cause much fewer other deaths per km than drivers. When you let your pitbull play with a kid, other people are taking the risk.
> I expect people here to be open towards other people pointing out their different POV
I am open to other people's point of view, but when I find out that all the evidence is completely contrary to their point of view, like that pitbulls are not more dangerous than other dogs, then I decide that perhaps their POV is wrong. Note that I'm not saying that dogs are dangerous. I'm just saying that pitbulls are more dangerous than other dogs.
