Erroneous Risk Assessment and Mitigation #3: All or nothing.

Rarely is a situation strictly all or nothing, but is both a matter of probabilities and possible fixes. I once had a group of Trustees take away the church 15 passenger van because they saw a “60 Minutes” show “Dangerous at any speed” This was supposedly based on a NTSB study. None of the Trustees had read that report or even interested in doing so: Vans can be dangerous, therefore we do not use vans. The report actually said that SUVs were more likely to roll over than vans. The primary cause of vans rolling over was improperly inflated tires. Well that is certainly easy enough to fix! And the danger in a van that is rolling over is that an unbelted passenger can be thrown out and crushed. 80% of those who died in van accidents were not belted; 92% of those wearing belts in van accidents survived. Again, this is easy enough to fix! (I would give this statistic to my young passengers and all through the van you would hear “click.”) Because of the all or nothing approach, we had to stop using that van and pay a huge amount of money for a different type of 15 Passenger van. One that was probably at least as dangerous – but there wasn't a “60 Minutes” show on it.

• Can the danger be mitigated?
• Can a simple change reduce the risk to acceptable levels?