Bill Harvey: My Lucky Number’s 1

Understanding risk is very complicated. It is made more complicated if there is overlap and influence between many different risk factors and if there is no clear answer to the question ‘risk to whom or what?’

Is the risk of dying in a plane crash very high? If you are on board a crashing plane, yes. For the general population over a specific time, the risk is far lower than that of dying in a car crash, though car crash risk has a much greater correlation with age. And are we comparing risk to any cause of death or just crash death? The model of plane, nature of crash, profile of passenger and their protective environment; without further info, this is an impossible and leading question.