That was the headline I saw on the front page of a newspaper on Sunday, part of the build-up to the five year anniversary of 9/11. Reading the article, I realized that I don’t know what it means to be ‘safe’, as in the thing we are still not. Does it mean zero risk? If so, we have never been and never will be safe. Does it mean we still don’t ‘feel’ safe? That’s an interesting question for a therapist, but given the irrationality of most people’s fears I don’t think it has a whole lot to do with actually being safe. So what does it mean to be safe, and in particular safe from terrorism?
I thought about this question a lot a couple of years ago when I was traveling frequently to Israel. People would ask me if it was ‘safe’ to go there, given the suicide bombings and such. My response was always the same: have you ever seen the way Israelis drive? The probability of dying in a car accident over there is far, far greater than the chance of being the victim of a terrorist. Interestingly, that would almost always calm my worried friends down. It seems that traffic deaths are, well, too pedestrian to get all worked up about.
So let’s try out the same tactic on America. In the last five years about 3,000 Americans were killed by terrorists. And if you believe our President, the chances of another terrorist attack like 9/11 are lower today than five years ago. Now during that same five year period, over 200,000 Americans died in car accidents. A simple analysis of these statistics shows that the average American is about 100 times more likely to die in a car accident than a terrorist attack.
So are we safe? No, but terrorism is way down on the list of things we are not safe from. If saving American lives was the real issue, we’d be focusing on car safety rather than car bombs. But the anti-terrorism campaign has never been about saving American lives. It’s about trying to eliminate one class of US fatality – death by terrorist. I guess it really is about feeling safe rather than being safe after all.
i think you are right!i am in China.Tens of thousands chinese die in colliery accidents.have you been to China? because i’m a little technical personnel about lithography.so i very attention you websit.i want became excellent engineer ,but i fell i english very bad.i fell i need learn more.i can read some your paper.
Chirs, why do you hate Amerika so much?
Dang. That would be Chris. (I need a new keyboard…)
So, I guess we’re not safe from keyboards either.
Lithoguru tells us that 3000 Americans have died of terrorism. As of September 25, 2006, 2703 additional Americans (and counting) have died of terrorism at the rate of 2.4 per day. These particular Americans are called solidiers. They are never counted as terrorism fatalities, but how else could you accurately describe the reason for their violent demise?
Their fate is under the control of American politicians.
Our involvement in WW II lasted 1286 days. We’ve been in Iraq 38 days longer than that already, with no end in sight. How many more victims will terrorism claim? Sure enough though, even with these new numbers, it’s still lower than car accidents though.
Just a thought.
As the disclaimer goes, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Comparing the numbers from a small number (one) of discrete terrorist incidents to a very large number of near-continuous traffic accidents is inappropriate. For instance, a really bad traffic accident might take 100 lives, but won’t really move the average. A really bad terrorist strike, though, could cost millions of lives.
It’s clear to me that it’s a worthwhile effort, not just trying to make us feel safer. Which makes it all the more galling that we’re still traipsing around Iraq losing lives to go after thugs and mafias instead of real threats elsewhere.
– C. Prince (RHIT ’99)
C. Prince – you mention "real threats", but since these threats have yet to manifest themselves, you are looking at a sample size of zero, something that is even harder to get good statistics on than a sample of one. All "real" threats remain hypothetical, until it is too late, that is. So what makes them real? You may not want to admit that it is your fear that makes them real, but that is the truth.
Politicians play on that fear, and most of us don’t know how to rise above the fear to make good, informed decisions about threats. But the fact remains that we fear a hypothetical threat (another terrorsit attack) more than a real one (45,000 traffic deaths each year in the US), and so we focus our effort on what makes us feel better rather than on what makes us safer.