Go on - take a chance!

Lot been said and written over the past few days as a result of Richard Hammond's high-speed accident while driving a jet-powered car for a TV programme. I think there may be something in the view being put forward that TV programmers feel that they have to be continually "pushing the envelope" and outdoing what they did last time, and that this necessarily leads to more and more extreme things being attempted, but the phrase which keeps cropping up, and which I find annoying is "risk-analysis". Was a sufficiently full risk analysis carried out? Well, as far as I can see there were all sorts of emergency vehicles and personnel on hand, and indeed it seems probable that the fact that they were there and able to give their prompt attention quite possibly saved his life, so the only other factor would appear to be - should he have been allowed to do it? And what this comes down to is, should a mentally sound adult be prevented from doing something on the ground that he/she might get hurt or killed? On this basis, no mountain would ever have been climbed, the Channel would remain unswum, and we would still have men with red flags walking in front of our cars.