.when for the entire period of commercial aviation prior to the airspeed tape, there was nowhere near this rate.
You don't know this, you are simply making things up as you go. You don't know the 'rates', you don't have any numbers besides those 'four' (which are not rates) and you don't even know whether those four could be attributed to the 'speed tape' (your guess is not a proof) and then you were claiming you were an astute student of aviation safety. If you were you wouldn't be writing such nonsense.