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I have the text in book Dogwood by Chris Fabry:

I whirled in the seat and grabbed his right arm in a death grip.

Carson overcompensated and jerked the wheel left, weaving into the next lane. A horn honked and rose in volume as we locked eyes. He finally swerved back, regaining control and narrowly missing a pickup that ran off the road and threw gravel and dust into the air.

"Are you crazy?" he shouted. "You almost got us killed."

I have the question: Why does author use a phrase like this: "You almost got us killed". Why not: "You almost killed us"? What reason did the author have to use that phrase?.

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"You almost got us killed" is an idiomatic way of saying that someone's actions nearly led to your death. It suggests that it was not the person's direct intention to cause death, but that they were perhaps negligent or careless in some way that could have led to it.

"You almost killed us", taken literally, removes the element of indirect cause, so it could be understood that the person had intentions to kill. However, in context, it would probably not be said with that intention or be received that way. If you have encountered these two sentences, they almost certainly mean exactly the same thing.

It's worth noting that "kill" doesn't inherently imply intention to cause death the same way that "murder" does. Old age "kills" people, for example.

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Mostly this is just idiom. The idiomatic expression is "get us killed".

You get something done can mean that you do it yourself, or you cause someone else to do it. The ambiguity is useful here since if they had been killed in a car crash, who or what would have killed them? Is it "the pickup" or "the driver who swerved" or "the passenger who grabbed the driver's arm".

By using "you almost got us killed" the speaker doesn't need to worry about who or what actually does the killing. The ultimate cause would be the actions of the passenger, and it would have been the passenger who "got us killed".

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to get someone [killed] means: to cause someone to be killed by/in a situation

It is a typical spoken usage.

To say: You almost killed us. here would also work.

Other examples of the cause meaning:

  • get someone in trouble
  • get someone freed [from jail, for example]
  • get someone ready to go
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