Close the Beaches but Not the Highways

We are American's, we don't do nuance or incremntalism.

You have an 11 million to one chance of being killed by a shark.  you have a 1 in 100 chance to die in a car crash at any point in your life. 

There have been six shark attacks off the east coast in the last few weeks - non fatal.  In that same amount of time, there have been - according to statistical modeling - 121 auto deaths in states along the same coast for roughly the same amount of time.

Beaches however, will close. Roads and highways will not.

We know for an absolute fact that there will be a certain number of deadly car crashes per number of cars and miles driven.  We do not know for any ascertainable fact when and where the next shark attack will happen - fatal or otherwise.

For beach goers there is no "safe" time to go into the water, just as their is no "unsafe" time to go into the water.  Shark attacks are mind-numbingly rare and they always will be.

For drivers, anytime you get on the road, you risk your safety and that of your passengers. 
But, we have to have cars and travel and commerce.  We don't have to have swimmable beaches. 

So we panic over something insignificant and completely ignore and gloss over something that is incalcuably more dangerous. Driving.