If cars DID kill more people than smoking then of course we would be doing something about it, though I’m not sure about the efficacy of massive signs saying "Speed kills."

As it is, terrorism in the UK this year will be outnumbered as a cause of death by smoking by something like 2000 – 1, assuming nothing else happens. So while I (a smoker) would certainly expect the police to do their job and prevent more of these atrocities (and avoiding killing innocent brown people while they’re at it), I can’t say I’m quaking in my boots at the prospect of being blown to kingdom come by terrorists.

And that isn’t just because I live 300 miles from London.

How about taking your analogy about smoking and car crashes the other way: just because cars kill more people than smoking doesn’t mean that, say, all cars come with massive signed printed on them saying "Speed kills" or "Pollution may cause global warming". Nor have we banned cars from travelling over, say, 20mph (which would massively reduce death).

John’s point is, I think, that some of the reactions to terrorism are as over-the-top as my above suggestions about how to deal with cars. This is bad.

Terror is a serious problem, and it’s good that we’re investigating it and (hopefully) infiltrating terrorist organisations, getting intelligence, arresting people who appear to be terrorists, etc.

However, it’s a radically less serious problem than many of the serious problems we manage to deal with without turning into crazy drooling fanatics, as the whole ‘accidental plane crashes killing more people than deliberate terrorist attacks’ thing suggests.

This is a good sign that we should avoid being overly mentalist about terrorism, either.

So, please do explain the logic to me. More people die from car accidents than from lung cancer. Does this mean that we should allow cigarette sales to minors and cancel all the no-smoking rules? A very minor proportion of people die from prosate cancer. No more check-ups for you?

Or do we, perhaps, admit that *many* bad things could happen to us and then try to deal with *many* different dangers simultaneously? Or should we all just concentrate on car accidents while tumbleweeds roll through medical research facilities and daily bombs go off in London?

What’s the poiint of mentioning the possible nationality of the passengers given a theoretical destination?

btw, Aeroplanes are not safer than cars per hour travelled (though trains are). Lots and lots of rich people in private jets cark it every year.