Stay out of open fields and avoid tall trees during a lightning storm: 250,000 people a year are struck, and 24,000 killed every year by lightning, but your individual chances of being struck down are minimal, 1 in 84,000. (Obviously if you live on top of the San Andreas fault, your chances are higher, so if you are really afraid of dying in a quake, moving would be your first option.)įew phobias are as widespread as the fear of snakes (about half of adults suffer from this fear), but the chances of dying from a snakebite, bee sting or other venomous bites (heck, throw in Gila monsters) are just 1 in 100,000. Overall, the odds that you will die in an earthquake are only about 1 in 132.000. (No one seems to be afraid of cat attacks for some reason.) Phobias are by definition irrational, and telling someone their fears are unfounded probably won’t work, but your actual chances of dying from a killer canine is small, 1 in 148,000. suffer from cynophobia, a debilitating fear of human's best friend. The scenario makes for good press and pretty good Bruce Willis flicks, but the actual odds of dying in an asteroid mashup are around 1 in 500,000.Īround 60 million people in the U.S. There’s been lots of media in the past couple years about the potential catastrophe of an asteroid hitting the Earth. But they don't hit very often, and your chances of actually being in a tsunami and getting killed are remote, 1 in 500,000. Gigantic waves are killers all right, and when they hit, there is no doubt they are potent killers. Your chances of dying from a fireworks accident are 1 in 615,000. And that is probably a good idea, given that 10,000 or so people wind up in the ER from fireworks injury every year.
#LARRY SCHWARTZ PROFESSIONAL#
Whenever the Fourth of July rolls around, people are quick to warn their children (and maybe we should include a few professional football players) about the dangers of playing around with fireworks. Here are 20 ways we may possibly die, and the odds that they will actually happen, from least to most likely (odds are rounded up or down for simplicity). Statistically speaking, however, our anxieties are woefully misplaced. We become aware of a fearful situation through repeated viewing, and although we have not actually experienced it, we essentially teach ourselves to fear it.
This is known as instructional fear acquisition. There are only so many times you can view the World Trade Center collapsing before you become convinced that terrorism is a realistic threat to your existence (actual threat? 1 in 9.3 million). The decision of cable news to fill its 24-hour news cycle with scenes of death and destruction doesn’t help either.
alone-but there is no Cow Week on the Discovery Channel.
Cows kill more people every year-20 in the U.S. The truth is that sharks don’t even like the taste of humans, and only 5 to 15 people worldwide die from shark attacks annually. But the truth is much more mundane than that.Ĭertainly terrifying movies like Jaws have contributed to our irrational fears about dying from a malevolent great white shark.
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