One of the more baffling phenomena to me is when USians, after some sort of disaster or incident, go "well, of course that went wrong in that way, because <plausible sounding reason>"

And like, the reason really *does* sound plausible, but then I also can't help but notice that this same type of incident *does not meaningfully happen elsewhere* even though the same reasoning would apply there too, so... what extra context is missing there??

(This thought prompted by the I-95 fire incident, but it's far from the first time I've observed this)

Like, trucks catching on fire is plausible. Highway structures collapsing under intense heat is plausible.

But then why do I never hear about collapsing highways over here? We have trucks and highway structures too. What's the differing factor?

@joepie91 if I had to guess, there are a few factors that may make that more common in the US.

We don't maintain our infrastructure
We move a lot by truck instead of better alternatives like rail
We are a large country so rare events are more likely to happen here than in smaller countries (though I suspect this is not the primary reason at play)