Max9
What makes you think that estimating the risk automatically leads to avoiding it?
This is not about avoiding risks, only on how to make a reasonable estimation about them. When you know the risk, and have also considered the benefit, you can make an informed decision about whether the benefit (plus the effort to achieve it) is worth the risk (plus the effort to avoid it).
If people don't try to estimate the risk and benefit, some will try to avoid risks that they don't really need to, their fears causing them to miss nice benefits, while others will ignore risks that they really shouldn't, their overconfidence causing serious negative consequences sooner or later.
In my example of the traffic, it is not about never again crossing that intersection (big cost), but just to keep on slowing down and look when you approach it, even when it gains you nothing most of the time. The cost of that will be a few seconds longer travel time each day, which will also accumulate, but is still negligible compared to the cost of being involved in an accident.
