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Dear Mr Litman and Dr Richmond, I have read your messages to UTSG. I hope that Mr Litman will decide not to go ahead with his press release. My concern about your paper is that you not distinguish between intentional and unintentional, or accidental, events. In the case of accidental events, past risks are a good guide to present risks, because events are independent, and fallible systems and humans change only slowly. However, that is not necessarily so with intentional events: we do not know whether the past is a good guide to the present. I also suggest that in simply equating intentional with accidental casualties, you are pushing consequentialism too far (judging events solely by their outcomes). On the other hand, Dr Richmond's wish that we should treat each human life as having infinite value is of no practical use for policy, because it implies that all of society's resources should be devoted to safety. All of us trade safety against other benefits in our everyday life, and so do all highway and transport authorities. Sometimes we all have to say No to safety measures, because there are better things to do with our time and money. And we take risks, such as travelling at all, in order to achieve benefits. As my colleague Richard Allsop said in a recent lecture, "Safety is for living, and living is more than just keeping safe". Andrew Evans Imperial College London