Mitigating Halloween and Our Obsession with Risk

Pedestrian safety became an issue on my neighborhood listserv in Durham last week when some parents decided they wanted to seal off streets this Halloween.

“Helicopter” parents apparently get a little testy too as several did when one neighbor, a university professor in our midst, dared raise the potential of “unintended consequences” along with the fact that “we are terrible” at estimating risk.

In my former career, I often found myself in what crisis management expert Peter Sandman calls the “calm down” business which is futile in addressing those in “fear” or those in the “outrage” business.

I remember a few months before 9/11, sharing with a journalist friend, the book by sociological researcher Dr. Barry Glassner, now the president of Lewis & Clark College entitled, The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things.

It mostly fell on deaf ears.  Journalists pride themselves on objectivity but by the nature of their craft, are more often slaves instead to anecdotes, especially those that cause alarm among audiences.

With fewer and fewer resources spread among too many outlets all chasing the same stories, rarely, if ever is there time or inclination to delve into perspective, thus, we see the media repeatedly use fear to bully public policy as it is doing with Ebola right now.

Then, as if totally unaware of cause and effect, they turn around and publish “lookie-there” stories about how upset people are and how officials are pandering to fear, completing a self-fulfilling feedback loop.

Journalists, other than the media analysts/hosts of On The Media will collectively be in denial that their outsized coverage of a potential pandemics and obsessions with beheadings by thugs may turn out to be enough to sway the upcoming election.

But it is more complicated than that and the news media is not entirely to blame.

The news media is indeed biased, but not in the partisan way Republicans have ingrained us to believe.  Media analyst Brooke Gladstone, in her book The Influencing Machine notes the real biases in the news media.

She explains that journalists are indeed biased when it comes to bad news because we, the consumers, are “wired to care about anything that even remotely threatens us…this makes the world seem more dangerous than it is.”

Some years ago, communications researchers helped the organization I led back then unwrap the source of entrenched negativity about the community I represented among residents of two nearby communities.

Without first lowering the barrier this created, any promotion would be futile.

They concluded that the news media there were not breeders of the negativity but rather carriers, and that any messaging we undertook needed to distinguish among news decision-makers there the role of over-weighting and lack of perspective from news content.

It worked and became one of three pillars that turned the condition around to a positive by the late 1990s, which in turn loosened up financing that enabled Durham’s subsequent brick and mortar revitalization.

Glassner took no prisoners in his book Culture of Fear, which was republished with updated perspectives and research in 2010, especially among editors, journalists and especially publishers keenly aware of how lucrative fear stories are.

But he and Gladstone agree that the solution lies with us as news consumers and part of that means speaking up whenever fear is blown out of perspective as it was on my neighborhood list serve this week.

Journalists often lurk on these networks in search of story ideas that resonate but hopefully, they are also seeing how sloppy or inaccurate coverage can fuel reactions to fear among ordinary citizens in ways that can have unintended consequences in society.

Group-think decision makers, who seemingly cloak fear-based reactions with rational or maybe who just didn’t think through the ramifications, often react defensively to interjections to “calm down,” turning snarky instead on the messengers.

But one rational outcome on our listserv this week was circulation of a link to a report on pedestrian-car collisions issued a couple of months ago by the UNC Highway Safety Research Center.

Using data in the report, a neighbor on the “calm down” side of the exchanges computed that the odds of any child on Halloween being injured in an accident involving a motor vehicle is 1-in-240,000,000, far less than accidentally stumbling.

The report breaks down vehicle accidents involving pedestrians between 2008 and 2012 across the state including by region, comparing rural vs. urban and ranking the most prone cities.

Durham ranks fourth as a city, its same rank by size of population but fifth as a county, one spot higher than by population.  It is too bad the researchers couldn’t include non-residents where they work in one community during the day but live in another.

Communities such as Durham have a net increase in drivers during the day of nearly 137,000 drivers, a much higher proportion than other cities. It also doesn’t factor in visitors who in high-performance Durham add 25,000 drivers here per day.

But even if weighted for total drivers vs. just population that wouldn’t entirely explain why Durham has more incidents than say, Winston-Salem.

Many people dismiss these pedestrian-car crashes as merely related to alcohol, nighttime, age or weather but that isn’t the case.  Nearly 90% and more than 95% of the crashes respectively, alcohol use is not suspected on the part of the pedestrian or the driver.

Over 75% involve pedestrians are older than 16 and younger than 60, and 73% of the drivers involved are older than 20 and younger than 59. Over half of the instances occur in daylight and another fifth on lighted roadways.  Nearly 80% occur when the weather is clear.

I’m certain everyone commenting on my neighborhood listserv this week considers themselves rational, enlightened and open-minded people, but cognitive scientists know we are lousy at challenging our own beliefs.

“Fundamentally,” according to researcher Dr. Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind, “we are primarily intuitive not rational.”

But he cites studies on reflection and reasoning in moral judgment by researchers at Harvard and Stanford that show that  when we are “forced to reflect for two minutes on a different point of view[,that] can make us substantially more tolerant” of opposing views.

In an excellent post on her blog Otium entitled “Do Rational People Exist”, a Yale PhD. candidate gives an excellent overview of research finding related to our cognitive biases.

She concludes from the findings that rational people do exist, and while in a minority, it isn’t a “tiny minority.”  For one, I’m relieved when those who in this minority are speak up, even if it makes some of use uncomfortable.

And lurking news media may also just pick up some valuable grist that will help us put what collectively threatens us in far better context rather than the “rush to judgment” the feeding frenzy of news stories fueled in Durham during the Lacrosse case or now in Ferguson, Missouri.

But I fear the reaction may just be “lookie-there” or anecdotal disbelief as it was this week when forensics and numerous grand jury eye-witnesses in Missouri rounded out some premature speculation.

One thing I know from experience is that news media, while unrepentant nor introspective about its role, collectively just points the finger in another direction.

But news outlets are a reflection of the masses and only we the consumers can generate perspective.

Risk Takers Are Typically Also More Rational

During the first week of the year 2000, Sam Schmidt, an Indy Car race driver who was favored for the upcoming season, slammed into the wall on turn two during testing at Walt Disney World Speedway, leaving him a quadriplegic.

He fought back, got an MBA, bought his father’s company and with a  partner fielded Schmidt Petersen Motorsports, inspiration enough given the risks of racing.  But a new study shows that race drivers are actually more rational than the general population.

Fourteen years after his accident in the days leading up to last month’s Indianapolis 500, Schmidt drove a souped-up Corvette Stingray for several laps around the historic oval.

Using a semi-autonomous technology so he could handle the car with head movements, he hit 100 m.p.h.  Click here to see how it works.  Essentially he bites down to brake, tilts his head left or right to steer and tilts his head back to accelerate.

The development is part of a US Air Force-funded research project, but a new study shows that even amateur race car drivers are actually much “more rational” about choices than the average population.

Like motorcycle riders now who, on average, are in their 40s compared to the average of 24 during in the 1980s, the researchers found it isn’t risk they are immune from.  They are just better immune to “possibility bias.”

This is the overweighting of low probabilities that keep people from trying new things.

Instead they are less likely to overemphasize low-probability events including failure.

The latter fall on the risk-adverse “small-t” part of the T-Personality Spectrum refined by Temple professor and researcher Dr. Frank Farley over the last three decades.

Those who are immune to “possibility bias” are the “Big-T” or “T-Positive” personalities who take risks because they are motivated by intensity and innovation.

According to Farley, these “Big-T” personalities just have a much higher tolerance for uncertainty.  As nation’s go, over its history the USA has been a “Big-T” country according to Farley.

Over the course of its history, Durham, North Carolina has always been a “Big-T” community as are others who focus on being distinct.  “Big-T” is also why Durham’s destination marketing is more innovative than others.

While those who aspire to be “major league” by merely emulating others at the sacrifice of sense of place are probably “small-t” cities.

Farley also classifies gamblers and criminals as “T-Negative” personalities, a group that includes far too many business executives and government officials involved in “legal corruption” too.

When you take lessons to ride a motorcycle, you learn to sense your limitations, ride as though everyone is out to get you and always be alert to escape routes should a problem arise.

In general, motorcycle riders are expert at rationally calculating risk.

You also learn that the death rate for motorcyclists is 30 times higher than it is for drivers of motor vehicles overall, but that this rate falls dramatically depending on type of bike, e.g. sport bikes vs. cruisers like Harleys, and by speed and the age of rider.

I always wear a full-face, modular helmet because injuries occur more often to the jaw than the top of the head.  But ironically, 75% of the fatalities on sport bikes involved riders who also wore helmets of some type.

Interestingly, only half of those riding cruisers or standard motorcycles were wearing helmets when fatalities occurred, another reason perhaps that different types of bikes need to be differentiated for premiums.

But you don’t wear a helmet so you can take risks, you wear it because others who are less rational in vehicles of all type take them irrationally.  That may be why many race drivers feel safest while on the track.

Controlling speed, avoiding alcohol, staying alert and the wisdom of age bring the accident rate for riders down to near that of cars.  Overall, the fatality rate and crash injury rate for 100 million motorcycle miles traveled is 24.93 and 440 respectively.

The latter figure has fallen nearly 60% just since 1989 when I was just more than a third of the way through my now concluded career.

The biggest danger to riders is the same one it is for all vehicles: drivers of cars, trucks and SUVs who don’t pay attention.   And as we know from this assessment of what happened recently on Mt. Rainier, stuff happens no matter what you do to mitigate it.

Motor vehicle drivers are more likely than motorcyclists in my opinion to underestimate risk.  A new study by the National Highway Safety Administration computes that motor vehicle crashes costs society $871 billion annually, nearly $900 for each person living in the United States.

Nearly 70% of that comes from the lost of life as well as pain and decreased quality of life due to injuries. 

Nearly 75% of these costs are shouldered by non-participants through taxes, insurance premiums and congestion-related losses. Funny we don’t hear Tea Partiers whining about this!

The cost to society vs. the individual total $200 billion alone including nearly a fifth for direct medical care, another reason the new federal healthcare insurance requirement makes sense.

Here’s a thought for those obsessed with repealing this requirement: It may be your right to bang yourself up in a vehicle accident, but I shouldn’t later have to pay for it with my taxes or through other means.

Ride or drive stupid if you want, but insurance should be the minimum requirement.

The direct cost of a motorcycle fatality where failure to wear a helmet is involved is nearly $1.3 million alone.

But the direct economic cost to society for not wearing a seat belt is 11 times higher.

This failure results in killing 3,350 people and seriously injuring another 54,300 each year, costing society $13.billion alone, while using them prevented 12,500 fatalities and 308,000 serious injuries.

Using seat belts, which at one time was vigorously opposed by conservatives, saves society $69 billion in medical care, lost productivity, and other injury-related costs.

Two other new studies are disturbing.

One by University of Michigan researchers found that children of minority parents were far less likely to be given age-appropriate restraint while riding in a vehicle compared to the the children of white parents.

Other studies have often found that parents who are minorities, based on their own experiences, often try to counterbalance what they expect their children are going to face in society by being overly flexible, but this is one area where the requirement is a matter of life and death.

Motor vehicles are the leading cause of death and injury for children.

The other study, by the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC,) finds something even more disturbing.  An ongoing pilot study finds that pedestrians who are black are passed by twice as many cars before someone yields at an un-signalized marked crosswalk.

Black pedestrians were made to wait 32% longer than white pedestrians.  Subtle forms of racism surface when information and decisions must be processed very quickly.  This may also lead black pedestrians to take more risk in crossing.

Another new study by researchers at the University of Texas and UCLA finds that “executive functions,” the set of skills so essential to success in life and should be taught and learned at a very young age, also play a major role in our assessment of risk.

These include attention (shedding distractions,) working memory and self control, especially the latter.  Too little perhaps and we underestimate risk, too much and we overestimate the possibility or risk, resulting in “possibility bias.”

Both are harmful, one leads to truly dangerous choices, the other to a life not led.

Becoming Extinct

My blood type is O-Negative.  I’m a universal donor which I was told means anyone can use my blood for a transfusion but if ever needed, I’ll need this specific blood type.  It is a actually a little more complicated than that but it is true in life-threatening situations.

In the USA, O is the most common blood type.  O-Negative isn’t the most rare but it is found in only 8% of US Caucasians, 4% of African Americans and Hispanics and 1% of Asians.  On weighted basis, that means O-Negative is found in 4.3% of the population worldwide.

My blood type is also becoming extinct.  The negative is for RH which means I don’t have a Rhesus monkey in my background, as apparently  85% of the population does.  Many think o-negative is the purest blood group. It can’t be cloned. My diet is closest to the cave man.  On one genealogical site I can trace ancestors back to Adam.  Others theorize this blood type may mean I am linked to ancient astronauts.

Okay, now I’m getting spooked!  Studies have shown however, that donating blood as little as twice at four-week intervals is linked to a drop in blood pressure, heart rate and blood sugar levels.  The subjects in these studies were obese and I don’t have those conditions but maybe it will work for those pesky triglycerides? 

Scientists determined blood types in the early 1900s.  Nazis adulterated the science to rationalize genocide.  According to author Charlotte Libov – “In World War II, Japan segregated some of its fighting units by blood type because its commanders believed that soldiers with the same blood group would work together better.”

In his mid-1990s book entitled Eat Right 4 Your Type, Dr. Peter D’Adamo devised diets and exercise for each of the major blood types and an encyclopedia linking blood types to various health conditions.

Last year Harvard University’s Dr. Lu Qi and a team of researchers published a study linking various blood types and the risk of heart disease.  Blood types, according to Libov “are determined by the differing antigens and antibodies that the blood contains.”

For example, some blood types are more susceptible to bacterial infection and others to viral.

There are actually 32 blood group systems used to identify blood type.  Last year scientists at the University of Vermont identified two new attributes that will make transfusions even more accurate.

I think all of this is to say that I need to get my butt the three miles down to the Durham Red Cross blood donation center once a month, another good excuse to clean out the pipes on the ole’ Cross Bones.  Or I could exercise.  Or eat red meat less often but that wouldn’t be very cave-man-like.

I read an article last month about “microlives” or increments of 30 minutes of life expectancy.  Statisticians at the University of Cambridge have computed the risks inherent in various habits.

Apparently, eating an extra portion of red meat a day will cut a man’s life expectancy down by about one year and is apparently much riskier by some measures at my age than riding a motorcycle.  I wonder what it is for those of us with an O-Negative blood type?

In an article this month by Frank Bures entitled The Rewards of Risk in The Rotarian magazine, he writes in part about the studies of risk-taking by Dr. Frank Farley at Temple University and their role in our lives.

Farley divides personalities into categories of “T” for thrill.  “Big T” people, whether “T-mental” or “T-physical,” seek challenges and enjoy the thrill of seeing what they can do.  A few, unfortunately, veer into “T-negative” things such as gambling and crime.

“Then,” Bures notes, “there are what Farley calls “small-t” types – people who are risk-adverse, who let their lives be circumscribed by what they fear: failure, loss, humiliation, pain.”  He notes that 18% of the US population is affected by anxiety or the fear of possible future misfortune, a rate five times that of a third world country.

I guess, for some, I may be considered a “Big T” person, even though I’ve been retired now for three years.

I’ve spent a lot of time on a Harley, learned enough to fly an airplane, researched and written more than 860 essays such as this (Big-T mental, at least for me,) taken four-6,000-mile east-west cross-country trips with my Mugs, my English bulldog and four north-south trips with a friend.

I’ve also spent as much time as I can with family, especially my daughter and grandsons.  I treasure speaking with her several times a week as she drives to her work as a healthcare attorney or waits for the boys during an activity.

I haven’t even touched a number of other passions and interests yet, but life in so-called retirement has been rich and rewarding, so I am very blessed.

There are some things I need to do less, like eating red meat, and some things I need to do more, such as exercise.  Regarding the later, I am either a “small-t” or just lazy.

But I hope I can keep “letting go of life’s handrails” as Dr. Farley puts it because as Bures concludes in his article – “Not taking risks along the way is the biggest risk of all.”