David Brooks has a column in today's New York Times about our difficulties assessing risk, in light of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. One tendency he highlights is our excessive faith in devices aimed at minimizing risk. Although his general point is probably correct, I think he makes a statistical error in the example he uses to illustrate this tendency. Brooks seems to confuse numbers with rates.

He writes: "More pedestrians die in crosswalks than when jay-walking. That's because they have a false sense...