Make It Mean Something

They might tell the House [of Representatives] that there's a 1.5 percent failure rate, but most Americans don't understand what that means. I mean, 1.5, what is that? Is that a lot? You have to relate it to something that means something to somebody. Otherwise, people have the perception that space flight is safe, and when there's an accident, they're shocked. It's like, "We gotta stop flying." If we want to add additional safeguards because now we're feeling emotional about it, okay, we can do that. But if we're still meeting our design specs for loss, why would we stop flying?

From: The Wrong Stuff : Risky Business: James Bagian—NASA astronaut turned patient safety expert—on Being Wrong