I've said before that building codes are one part best practices and one part excuses for bureaucratic interference with progress, with the balance skewing more toward the latter depending on the mood of the bureaucrats involved on any given day.
As an architectural drafter with just enough engineering knowledge to be dangerous, I can say with professional certainty that building codes do not produce safer buildings. They just get in the way of actually serving the needs of the clients.
I've had the displeasure of dealing with a lot of that recently, and it's obvious that safety is NOT the real goal of it. CONTROL and REVENUE are the goals.
For those that don't realize it, building codes and permits were originally implemented for structures built for use by governments to be certain that contractors were doing things right.
Over time these started being applied to people and their property due to public ignorance.
This is a very common method for people calling themselves government to implement control and has happened again and again (drivers licenses being the most obvious case).