Thats right. The risks of a perfume lady are way too scary. Cars never have any odors, just fumes, soot and particulate matter, brake dust. The air quality of cities is so much better than that of forests because of cars. The risks couldn't be more clear: 10 million deaths from air pollution[1] and pollution causing every kind of disease (except STIs) from cars vs hundreds of millions of deaths from perfume lady in train.

This is what all economists get slightly wrong? They say humans are rational agents, soak in all the information, calculate the costs and benefits with the probabilities and make rational decisions. But humans almost always make emotional decisions. A perfume lady is way more scarier than a 5000 lb vehicle hurtling down at 60 mph, custom built to protect the person driving the vehicle, on surfaces built for vehicles and vehicles only (trillions of dollars in maintenance and tens of trillions of dollars healthcare costs).

Air Pollution Kills 10 Million People a Year. Why Do We Accept That as Normal? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/environment/air-p...