What kills you matters

With the recent airline crash in Spain receiving a national three day period of mourning I am drawn again to thinking why it is that we give some events far more attention than others. 153 people died in that crash – in Spain 153 people are killed on their roads every twelve days. Do they have a week-end of mourning every fortnight? Why do we examine the causes of airplane crash in fine detail but hardly investigate those car crashes?

In the first half of October 2002 two people per day were killed in Washington and its suburbs. They were killed suddenly and without warning by a stranger they had never met. There was no discernible pattern in their age, sex or ethnicity. Their families and friends grieved, but otherwise their fates attracted virtually no media attention. They were victims of road accidents.

Over the same period someone was killed every other day by the Washington Sniper. Again there was no discernible pattern amongst the victims chosen by the anonymous killer. Their fates attracted massive media coverage all around the world and led, far beyond the vicinity of their occurrence, to extraordinary changes in behaviour – ranging from a massive policing operation to people jogging to their cars in zigzag patterns with their groceries in supermarket car parks.

We react, as individuals, to different types of death in various ways but government, as far as it is able, needs to react, albeit sympathetically, with detachment so that it allocates valuable resources to reduce the risk of being killed in the most cost efficient manner.

John Adams, emeritus Professor of Geography at the University College, London and co-founder of Friends of the Earth talks about this in more detail here