For eleven years the corner of Green Road and Hill Street had an accident about once a month. Everybody who lived near it knew. (11) Letters were written. A mother who lived there counted the cars for three weeks and took her paper to the office. Nothing changed until a shop owner put up his own mirror and paid for it, (12) drivers could finally see what was coming. The town put up a real one four months later. (13), the corner has had no accident in two years. The strange part is not that it was fixed, (14) that everybody knew about it for eleven years first.
People are afraid of sharks and plane accidents, and not afraid of stairs. (15) Stairs, hot water and small falls at home hurt far more people every year than any animal does. The reason is that fear follows stories, not numbers. A shark is on the news because it is rare, (16) a fall in a bathroom is not news at all. This matters because we spend our care in the wrong place. (17), a family may talk for an hour about a trip to the sea and never once look at the mat by the bath. Safety is seldom exciting, (18) that is exactly why it is easy to forget.