An interesting article from The Guardian UK says that after 9/11 a lot of people were afraid to fly and therefore took to the roads. But according to Professor Gerd Gigerenzer, a German academic specialising in risk, has estimated that an extra 1,595 Americans died in car accidents in the year after the attacks – indirect victims of the tragedy.(Guardian UK)
He goes on to say something really insightful about how we humans operate:
"We have an evolutionary tendency to fear situations in which many people die at one time. This is likely a hold-over from when we lived in small groups, where the death of a small part of the group could place the lives of everyone else in jeopardy.
"That's no longer the case, but it is very difficult to elicit the same fear for the same number of deaths spaced over a year."
So maybe our evolution is to look at in regards to the fact that so many of us just glaze over the high number of car crashes annually. Around 40,000.
I love this part "But decision-making is defensive. Politicians would be held responsible if a plane had crashed when flying through the ash cloud. If people are killed because they are forced to take their car instead, they are not blamed."
I feel there is a culture of blame in the USA. Yet, we don't hold personal responsibility as closely when it is actually something we could change. We could prevent a lot of our car crashes. We might be slightly inconvenienced, slowing down or just letting someone who makes a bad move in their car have more space, realize they are just driving unsafely.