With all the news about freeway shootings, it might seem like the safest thing to do is stay home in bed. But your chances of dying there are even higher.
According to the National Safety Council, 500 Americans perish each year from accidental strangulation or suffocation in bed. Contrast that with the four tragic gunfire deaths so far this year on area freeways.
Other unexpected minefields include turning on faucets (super-hot tap water kills 40 people a year), navigating staircases (1,600 deaths from falls) and walking out the front door (encounters with bees, reptiles, poisonous plants and even venomous caterpillars account for 90 fatalities annually).
So, why don't these threats cause as much anxiety as freeway shootings?
Fear is a complex beast -- and several factors influence why perceptions of danger are often out of sync with the actual mathematical risk, says David Ropeik of Harvard University's Center for Risk Analysis.
It's a pattern that also arose with West Nile virus, mad cow disease, the Washington, D.C., sniper, anthrax and Sept. 11, among others.
Experts say anxiety about such threats is fueled by a combination of human instinct and media hype.
"Things that kill us in ways over which we have no control seem scarier," Ropeik says. For example, riding in the passenger seat of a car feels more frightening than sitting behind the wheel, he says.
Uncertainty compounds the sense of danger. The apparent randomness of recent freeway shootings pushes emotional buttons, he says: "When we don't know the who, what, when, where or why of a risk, we protect ourselves with caution, fear and worry."
Ironically, that caution can sometimes put people in more peril. For instance, a few L.A. drivers have started traveling only on surface streets since the freeway shootings. Statistically, that increases their chances of dying because fatal car wrecks (and shootings) are more common on side streets.
A similar reaction happened after Sept. 11, Ropeik says. Terrorism fears prompted some people to switch from flying to driving. The result? From October to December 2001, the number of car-accident deaths nationwide climbed by more than 1,000 over the same period a year earlier, according to a University of Michigan study cited by Ropeik.
Not surprisingly, media coverage plays a key role in whipping up public fear, he says: "Awareness of a risk magnifies the fear of it."
