Why aren't Garbage collectors as respected as fire fighters?

Garbage collectors have four times the fatality rate of firefighters, mostly because of impatient drivers. Garbage collectors are so disrespected that people don't even believe this If you tell them, but you can look up the stats for yourself. So they put their life on the line even more. And if you think about it they save more lives too, if the garbage was not collected we'd have diseases like the plague. I'm not trying to disrespect firefighters but I think it's a little funny how people look down on garbage collectors and always have to thank firefighters even though garbage collectors put their life at risk four times as more.