In answer to the first question - yes! Hundreds of thousands of people stay alive thanks to safer cars, anti-smoking campaigns and taxes, airline safety, product legislation, etc. and so the regulation just goes on and on and on and...
But, and it's a big but, this business of people claiming compensation is something that has also become endemic. And, let's face it, how many people are going to give up the chance of 'free' money if they collide with a bollard, etc. Honestly, would you? If you want an end to all this, then ostracise from society anyone who claims for not looking where they are going, etc. Are you going to do that?
I liked what Arsene Wenger had to say on the matter when they tried to cancel a game at the Emirates last winter because they were afraid people might slip over on the ice and snow on the concourse outside. "The problem with this country" he said "is that you are ruled by fear, and not by the ability to take a rational risk. You cancel the game because you are afraid that someone might sue you, instead of asking people to assess their own risk and make their own decision to come or not." Why does it take a Frenchman to point out so clearly the problem with the British?
