Colby Cosh posted a blog entry I wish I had wrote. It's about how the knee-jerk reaction to enact a measure "if it even saves one life" can so easily go astray. The example is regulations on commercial cigarettes to prevent accidental fires from being started.

Colby and I aren't the only ones frustrated with this (a, b, c). Unfortunately we are probably outnumbered. People who want to save one more life want us to have more signage and helmet laws, have automatic external defibrillators in every plane and firetruck, change every TV and radio so it can be turned on automatically in emergencies, and all get immunized for meningococcus.