Perhaps we are in "the last mile"
You know. where you put reasonable resources into something and you get 90% there. But to extract that last 10% is extremely difficult and the return on investment may not be there.
First issue is to determine cause of death. That may assist in helping waterside fatalities. But the information may not apply to any other industry.
And while arguably you are safer getting home today than in 1970s. You really are no safer getting home than you are in the past 2 decades. Most of what ever gain in change was made in the 80's and 90's.
If we take the view its vehicles that kill then deaths per vehicle has been trending down since the 50's. And as you can see we havent really gone anywhere since the early 2000.'
And just to get a sense of scale it was 12.4 deaths' per billion vehicle kilometres traveled back in 2001 and 6.9 in 2020.
Same with vehicular injuries. Flat (tolerated?) over the 1950's to 60's. Then dipped until the early 2,000's where they have stagnated
So for all the money spent on roads, safety features in cars, "better" driver training, drink driving really it hasn't made much impact whatsoever.
So we have saved 5.5 lives per billion KM traveled. And the economic value of a NZ human life is around $6.6m per person
Possibly, because at the end of the day we have over-engineered solutions so individuals no longer think. Or they lack motivation to be responsible for their own actions. They are perhaps lazy and just sit back and rely on all the safety devices around them.
Or really. It might be because we cant fix stupid. (without bankrupting ourselves in the process)
And one final word on the transport analogy. There are over 20 factors that lead to motor vehicle accidents and consequential death / injury. Top of the list is drugs / alcohol. Next going to fast followed by loosing control. See what I mean about trying to fix stupid? These are all issues related to the individual and the choices they make. Might actually be the same in the waterside industry.