The world can be a frightening place. Images of violence, natural disasters, accidents, and other such dangers permeate our media, sowing fear in many. While these threats should certainly be respected, other far more mundane things in our lives are statistically much more likely to kill us.

Note: This list primarily shows statistics for the United States. This is not out of deliberate ignorance of the rest of the world but simply due to the ready availability of US-based statistics.

10More People Die Falling Out Of Bed Than From Roller Coasters

Some people love roller coasters; some people are terrified of them. The high speeds and great heights provide a relatively safe thrill for amusement park goers. However, accidents do happen, and roller coasters kill an average of four people in the US each year.

One-quarter of roller coaster deaths are occupational fatalities involving workers. Half are caused by a rider’s medical condition being exacerbated by the ride; these can be prevented by increased signage warning sufferers of certain conditions against boarding. Only the final quarter are caused by some sort of trauma to a park visitor, such as falling out of the roller coaster.

Rest assured: You probably won’t be killed the next time you ride a roller coaster. You’re much more likely to die from falling out of your own bed. Every year in the US, 450 people die this way. Ironically, bed rails sometimes make things worse. Hospitals have found that stubborn patients try to climb over them and fall farther than they would have otherwise.

9Cows Are More Likely To Kill You Than Bears

Fatal black bear attacks on humans have been rising in North America since the 1960s. Over the past 110 years, 63 people have been killed by black bears, mostly in Alaska and Canada. This amounts to fewer than one person per year. However, since 86 percent of these fatalities occurred after 1960, the current average is closer to two people per year.

Increased human encroachment into black bear habitats is cited as a probable cause. Most fatal attacks have been perpetrated by lone male bears sampling humans as a new food source. Surprisingly, mother bears defending their cubs or bears that have become familiar with humans are responsible for few fatalities.

While injurious encounters with black bears may continue to rise with human expansion, they have a long way to go before they kill more people than cattle, which kill an average of 22 people per year in the United States alone. Most fatal attacks on humans by cattle are deliberate, either by territorial bulls trampling and goring farmers or mothers protecting their calves. Other times, people are simply accidentally crushed.

8A Rip Current Will Get You Before A Shark Does

Going to the beach is a common and beloved summer pastime for people across the world. Such outings are not without danger, of course. You could get sunburned, stung by a jellyfish, or bitten by a shark.

Most unprovoked shark attacks on humans are cases of mistaken identity, where the shark takes one bite and then swims away upon tasting a distinctive lack of seal or fish. Those single bites can still cause serious injury or death. Even these mistakes are comparatively rare; most sharks that attack have been provoked by a human in some way.

All the same, if you’re in the water and feel yourself pulled away from safety, a rip current is much more likely to be responsible than a shark. Rip currents are more powerful than you may realize. They can pull you away from shore faster than an Olympic swimmer can swim. Trying to directly swim against a rip current, a common reaction, will only lead to fatigue and drowning.

It is estimated that over 100 people drown each year in the US due to rip currents. Conversely, despite some swimmers going to such extremes as taunting sharks, someone dies in the US from a shark attack only once every two years. Worldwide, only five die each year.

7High School Sports Kill More US Citizens Than Terrorists Do

Terrorism has been a defining fear in 21st-century US culture since the horrifying 9/11 attacks in 2001. From Al-Qaeda to ISIS, the news has frequently been filled with frightening terroristic imagery, causing many citizens to fear for themselves and their children.

In truth, US children are far more likely to end up dying on their high school playing field than at the hands of a terrorist. Roughly 50 young athletes die each year in the United States due to sports-related injuries. Rural areas are the worst-affected. Common causes of death include overheating (more on that later), brain injuries, and sudden cardiac arrest. It certainly doesn’t help that two-thirds of athletes show up to practice significantly dehydrated. Nor does it help that 16 percent of football players who are knocked unconscious from a hit will play more that same day; those who suffer further injury as a result have a 50/50 chance of dying. Sudden cardiac arrest kills 90 percent of the young athletes that it strikes.

Terrorism, on the other hand, has taken roughly 12 private US citizens per year, with 2001 an obvious anomaly. For example, terrorism killed nine in 2009, 10 in 2010, 17 in 2011, 10 in 2012, and 16 in 2013. The overwhelming majority of these deaths involved travel to Afghanistan. Not one death occurred within US borders.

6Disney World Kills More Than Florida’s Alligators

From 2005–2014, eight visitors to Disney World in Orlando, Florida were killed. Heart attacks (sometimes worsened by a lack of readily available defibrillators) and traumatic injuries are common causes. Five workers have also been killed in that time span, including three during a particularly bad season in 2009, by trauma or electrocution.

Some might consider Florida’s alligators to be more frightening than Mickey Mouse. The prospect of being bitten or dragged under and drowned by one of these ancient reptiles is certainly grim. While most alligators only attack if provoked, unprovoked predation does occur. Victims are often completely unaware of the alligator until it attacks. Still, you’re more likely to win the lottery in Florida than be killed by a hungry alligator. From 2005 to present, only six people have died in unprovoked alligator attacks. None have died since 2007.

5Summer’s Heat Will Kill You Before Lightning

Not only does it simply get hot in summer, but it’s also the time of year where one might have the greatest fear of encountering temperatures hotter than the surface of the Sun. Lightning can reach temperatures of 30,000 degrees Celsius (50,000 °F), causing severe burns, as well as killing an average of 51 people each year in the United States. Contrary to popular belief, most lightning strike victims are not struck directly but instead succumb to simply being near another object that is struck. This is why it always best to move indoors during a thunderstorm, as lying flat in a field will do nothing to save you from indirect strikes.

While you’re running inside, you might want to check your air conditioner, as you’re over 10 times more likely to die from excessive heat exposure, which generally kills 618 people each year in the US. Dying by heat is a surprisingly nasty way to go. As your temperature rises, in addition to sweating, your body tries to cool down by pumping more blood closer to the skin to radiate heat. If you can’t cool down, more and more blood is pumped away from your internal organs.

The lack of oxygen from blood strains the organs, while the continuing heat buildup causes an inflammatory response across the whole body, making it even harder to cool down. Once your temperature reaches 40 degrees Celsius (104 °F), your brain will get less blood due to increased intracranial pressure, and damaged tissue in the blood may cause your kidneys to fail. If your body makes it to 49 degrees Celsius (120 °F), and you’re not already dead, your cells will suffer direct heat damage.

4Worry More About Wind Chill Than Tornadoes

Hypothermia is an arguably sneakier killer than heat. Mild hypothermia may only manifest as the usual attributes of “being cold,” such as shivering, fingers feeling numb, and so on. If shivering isn’t enough to warm the body back up, it will do the opposite of the heat response described above and divert blood away from the extremities and into the internal organs.

Violent shivering will begin once the body’s temperature drops to 35 degrees Celsius (95 °F) but cease below 32 degrees Celsius (90 °F). At this point, the sufferer will be unable to think clearly and may even irrationally remove clothing.

Unconsciousness comes at 30 degrees Celsius (86 °F). At this point, a hypothermia victim may appear dead, as their body has slowed its metabolism to reduce oxygen requirements. Heart rate and respiration are quite slow. The heart finally will stop at 20 degrees Celsius (65 °F), though arrhythmias may cause death as soon as 28 degrees Celsius (82 °F).

Exposure to excessive cold kills roughly 1,300 people per year in the US. It would have to be a truly terrible and record-shattering weather year for tornadoes to match that. They kill 75 US residents each year on average. That chill you may feel in your fingers as you clear snow off your car this winter is a much more pressing danger than those thunderheads you may see in the distance this summer.

3Food Poisons More People Than Carbon Monoxide

Carbon monoxide (CO) is an even stealthier winter killer than hypothermia. You can’t see it, taste it, or smell it, and it won’t even make you sneeze or cough. Cars produce it every day, and your furnace might make the next cold winter night your last. After being inhaled, CO kills when it enters the bloodstream. It bonds to the hemoglobin in blood, which normally bonds with oxygen and carries it throughout the body. Carbon monoxide makes blood useless. Every year, 430 people die in the US of CO poisoning.

Don’t run away from your gas stove just yet; you need it to make sure your food is properly cooked. Foodborne diseases kill 3,000 US residents per year. A plurality of food poisoning cases are caused by poultry, although fruits, nuts, and leafy greens cause many cases as well. Several deaths might be prevented by simple measures such as proper hand-washing and cooking food to the correct temperature.

2Your Doctor’s Bad Handwriting Will Kill You Long Before Ebola

Ebola is a terrifying disease. The pathogen attacks nearly every organ and system in the human body, sparing only bones and muscles. Connective tissue such as collagen is effectively dissolved. Without that foundation, the skin floats over liquefied tissue, and the sufferer will bleed spontaneously from various orifices. This only gets worse once bloody vomiting and diarrhea commence. Blood loss ultimately kills an Ebola victim.

Fear of the disease led airports in the US and other countries to screen incoming passengers from West Africa. Despite this, health care workers in the US contracted Ebola, sparking fears of an outbreak. Four people were diagnosed with Ebola in 2014; one died, while the others recovered and were released from treatment. The one person who died caught the virus in Liberia.

Patients at the Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas, the site of three of the four Ebola cases, faced a much greater risk even during the stays of the Ebola patients: their doctors’ bad handwriting. A doctor’s frequently illegible notes or prescriptions may seem like joke fodder, but it leads to an average of 7,000 deaths every year in the US. Consider that 3.2 billion prescriptions are written annually. Bad writing can easily lead to the wrong dosage, and an unclear abbreviation might lead to the wrong medication being dispensed.

1Binge Drinking Kills More People Than All Other Drugs Combined

Sending a child off to college can certainly be stressful for concerned parents. They’ve kept their kids away from cows, bundled them up in the winter, cooked food just right, and made their pediatricians print every prescription. Now the time has come for the kid to leave the nest, get a degree, and ultimately land a good job. Of course, there’s always the frightening possibility that he or she will get hooked on drugs while they’re away. A bigger concern might be how much the kid has to drink.

Roughly 80,000 Americans die each year from binge drinking, defined as five or more alcoholic drinks in a short period of time for men or four or more for women. Most of these deaths may not be from direct alcohol poisoning, but car crashes and drunken violence can be just as deadly.

Only about half as many people die from drug overdoses in the US each year: for example, 41,000 in 2011 and 44,000 in 2013. These figures include overdoses on legal prescription drugs; illegal drugs constitute less than half of overdose deaths. In other words, parents should worry more about frat parties than a marijuana-smoking college roommate.

Anthony’s warnings to the Department of Homeland Security about the dangers posed by high school sports keep getting ignored for some reason.

Fear is one of the greatest motivators in the world. It can make a person act irrationally, and it can breed paranoia and distrust. And sometimes it just has really bizarre and unexpected effects that echo throughout history. All because someone was afraid of what might happen if they let things play out a certain way.

10. Elevator Operators Had Their Jobs Due to Fear

Once upon a time, if you were taking an elevator in a building, you just stood there while someone else did the hard work of pressing buttons and opening the doors. Elevator operators were a staple of any building that had an elevator because, of course, they were. An elevator was a giant metal box hanging from a cable that could potentially rise hundreds of feet into the air. Obviously someone with skill needed to operate it, right?

In 1945, elevator operators in New York went on strike. This crippled the city and cost a hundred million dollars. Millions of people couldn’t go to work. Because no one could operate an elevator. They were afraid to use one because they didn’t know any better.

The elevator industry had to start educating people. They had to learn they could press a button on their own, and eventually they did. Tens of thousands of elevator drivers lost jobs that only existed because people were afraid to use an elevator on their own. 

9. After 9/11 Fear of Flying Caused an Increase on Driving Deaths

September 11, 2001 is a day none of us who experienced it will ever forget. The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York produced a fear unlike anything America had experienced before. Planes had been turned into weapons on American soil and for a long while afterward, no one knew what was safe. This had a profound effect on air travel and, in turn, automobile fatalities. 

Fear of more terrorist attacks shut down the airline industry for days. Even when it reopened, people were reluctant to take to the skies again. The result was more Americans driving than flying. That, in turn, led to a significant rise in accidents and road deaths. In fact, 1,600 more road deaths occurred in the year following September 11 than should have happened based on statistics, or about 242 additional fatalities per month, depending on data sets used.

8. Danes Feared Damnation So They Committed Murder Instead of Suicide 

If you’re a religious person, you may be of the belief that suicide is a mortal sin and will condemn you to hell. Catholics believe this and, in the 18th century, the very idea of suicide was extremely taboo for this very reason. But that didn’t mean people weren’t contemplating it as much as people might today. They just had to think of a loophole to get out of damnation. That came in the form of murder.

If suicide was wrong, then the solution was to murder another, get sentenced to death, and be executed after repenting of their sins. Sure, someone else had to die, but your soul would be clean. Suicide left no time for repentance, so it was simply not an option.

In many cases, the unfortunate victim would be the child of the murderer/suicide, or maybe just someone random. Certainly no one who had done anything to deserve death. According to Lutheran beliefs at the time, as long as someone confessed their sins and repented just before death, they had no chance to sin again and could look forward to heaven. So their fear of doing the wrong thing led them to believe taking an innocent life was the right thing. No word on whether God thought exploiting a dogmatic loophole was a sin or not. 

7. Eugene Lazowski Terrified the Nazis with Fake Typhus

We know that, during the Second World War, there were a handful of people working with the Nazis who were covertly working against them and doing whatever they could to save Jewish lives. One of those people was Polish doctor Eugene Lazowski who preyed on Nazi fears to save 8,000 villagers, including Jews that were hidden among them.

Lazowski was forbidden from treating Jews, but he did so anyway and, at the height of a typhus outbreak, a colleague discovered something fascinating. If he injected a dead strain of typhus into a patient, they wouldn’t get the disease but they would still test positive for it.

Typhus was killing thousands, and the Nazis were terrified of its spread.  So Lazowski came up with a plan. He could create a fake epidemic by infecting thousands of villagers in the area with the dead typhus strain. They injected people at a rate meant to mimic a real typhus epidemic and sent patients to other towns to confirm blood tests, giving the whole scheme legitimacy. The Nazis quarantined over a dozen towns as a result, and they remained quarantined until liberation. 

The entire plan nearly fell apart at one point due to the fact there were so many cases, but no reported deaths. Lazowski partied with the Gestapo who came to investigate, keeping them drunk and well-fed enough for them to not care about the discrepancies. 

6. A Baker’s Dozen Exists Because Bakers Were Afraid of Short Changing Customers

A dozen means 12, coming from a French word which itself can be traced to Latin, all meaning 12. So it’s perplexing then that a baker’s dozen also exists, but that means 13. 

The reason a baker’s dozen has an extra individual added to the group is strictly fear-based.

This one goes back to bakers in medieval times. The price of bread was directly tied to the price of wheat. A baker couldn’t legally rip you off by giving you a smaller loaf but charging the same price. If they short changed a customer, they faced punishment. 

The law, called the Assize of Bread and Ale, was re-established in 1266 by Henry III. If a baker short weighted their bread, they could be fined or even flogged. So, when selling loaves by the dozen, bakers would toss in an extra loaf to ensure there was no chance of short changing anyone by accident. If they sold an individual loaf, the customer might get an extra crust. 

5. The Fear of Losing Beer Was the Reason Pilgrims Settled at Plymouth Rock

Beer has been an important part of civilization for years. In fact, it’s been argued that civilization exists because of beer. So make no mistake, people take it seriously today and they took it a lot more seriously in the past. So seriously that the fear of running out was a major contributing factor to the decision to settle at Plymouth Rock.

You need to remember that getting a drink of anything was a lot more difficult back when America was first settled than it is today. Safe, clean water was not a kitchen faucet away and a nutritional beverage was even harder to find. Beer fixed both of those problems. For many, it was treated something like liquid bread. Even Puritans weren’t opposed to beer when they might turn their nose up at wine. And if the beer ran out or went bad, then the potential to die of dehydration or starvation was all too real. 

4. Motorcycle Speeds Are Limited Over Fears of Getting Out of Hand

Have you ever heard a motorcycle tearing down the road, the engine roaring, and wondered how fast it was going? Today, the answer is probably 186 miles per hour. Or less. But that wasn’t always so. Once upon a time there was a speed war between motorcycle manufacturers and it was only through fears of what would happen if it continued unchecked that the major companies agreed to impose a 186 mph speed limit on all production bikes.

In the 1990s, Kawasaki’s Ninja ZX-11 could reach 175 miles-per-hour. It was the world’s fastest bike. Until Honda came along with the 179 mph Super Blackbird. Suzuki leapt into the fray with the 193 mph Hayabusa. Then Kawasaki returned with the ZX-12R, rumored to be able to crack 200 mph. Before the bike even existed, people became concerned. They feared this incredible speeds would lead to death and mayhem if companies kept one upping each other. So what is known as the “Gentleman’s Agreement” was born.

Though not all parties admit to it, word is BMW, Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki all got together to agree to limit their bikes to 300 km/h or 186 mph. A number of European manufacturers have since ignored this number, but the Japanese companies still keep their street bikes limited to 186.

3. Chicago Gangs Feared Crack Would Run Them Out of Business

Remember the War on Drugs? Is it still going on? Maybe. But there was a time when crack hitting the streets of major cities in America was still big news, as it seemed to reach epidemic proportions. But Chicago was slower to give over than other cities for a very unexpected reason.

Though drug dealers did eventually worm their way throughout the city, it was believed that Chicago held the drug at bay for some years thanks to the influence of major drug kingpins and cartels. The gangs that sold powder cocaine and heroin refused to let crack gain a foothold for fear of losing business. The belief was that smaller dealers would pose a threat to their overall control of the city’s drug trade. In fact, it was estimated that 90% of the crack in the city was made at home and not meant for citywide distribution. 

2. Blessing After a Sneeze Comes From the Fear of Losing Your Soul

You’re in the kitchen seasoning that steak you’re about to grill when suddenly you get a snoot full of pepper and bust out a vicious sneeze. Your friend in the other room says “bless you” and your day proceeds as normal. Whether you realize it or not, your friend may have just saved your soul from the Devil. In theory, anyway,

The habit of saying “bless you” or “God bless you” after a sneeze dates back to ancient times. Even the Romans and Greeks did it. It was long believed a sneeze put you at risk of launching your soul from your body and leaving you an empty husk of an abomination.

There was a fear that when you shot your soul out with a sneeze, that crafty old imp Satan would use the opportunity to creep inside you and take up residence. So blessing someone was a method of protection against such a stygian migration. Once blessed, the fear of being possessed and soulless was gone. 

1. Fear Scrapped a Plan to Assassinate Hitler

One of the most popular thought experiments of the last century has been Baby Hitler. If you could go back in time, would you kill Hitler as an infant? This even popped up in Deadpool. People argue both sides of the issue. But that’s all theoretical. What about when we really could have killed Hitler? Why didn’t that ever happen? It wasn’t because no one ever had the idea. There was a plan, but it was scrapped out of fear.

A number of plans to take out Hitler were tossed around during the war, one of which was Operation Foxley. Winston Churchill himself was a proponent of it and the plan was, on paper, fairly simple even if the logistics were hard to work out. A sniper would be sent to the Bavarian Alps to a place where Hitler went to get away from it all. Intelligence said he took daily walks, so the sniper would simply shoot him on his walk. 

The plan was never executed out of fear of what would happen next. The Allies believed Hitler was actually a pretty terrible strategist and that many of their successes were thanks to how bad the man was at commanding his own forces. They feared that Hitler’s death would open the door for a more competent leader and that would turn the tide of war against the Allies.