So comparing "directly dying from construction" to "commuting in a car" is a big reach.

Diet, stress, physically-taxing-if-not-directly-fatal jobs, cancer-linked chemicals, pollution, etc. Tradeoffs made at both the societal and individual level every day.

Even in cars, consider the difference in attention "death from direct failure of the vehicle or manufacturer" gets compared to the more-random "accident that could've happened to anyone" increased-death-probability cases.

And that ties us neatly back to construction! We have many more things in place for construction safety - from regulations to equipment to practices - but it doesn't prevent there from being any loss of life, still. We just don't want to go backward.