How to Avoid a Bank Robbery
I know I’m not really going to be taken hostage at a bank. But humans are notoriously terrible at assessing risk.
It’s not unusual for women to become slightly paranoid when pregnant, but usually they worry about soft cheese or toxoplasmosis. I was convinced that I was going to be held hostage in a bank robbery and possibly shot, all the while on live TV.
That’s really unlikely, I can hear you saying. What are the odds? I'll tell you the odds: infinitesimal. Did this stop me from obsessing about it? It did not.
I am not alone in my absurd, illogical fears. It’s a well-studied phenomenon that people are extremely bad at assessing risk. Consider the fact that, according to one 2004 study, people worked so hard to avoid air travel after September 11 that there may have been as many as 350 excess automobile fatalities — more people than died on the hijacked planes. Being involved in a bank robbery and taken hostage is far less likely than getting in a car crash because you drove an extra ten minutes to the supposedly “safer” bank. Even if robberies were more common, you’re in a bank for just a few minutes, whereas you spend much more time driving and there are far more hazards involved. (That’s why we need car insurance more than we need bank robbery insurance. Except for banks. Banks need bank robbery insurance.) But the robbery still felt like a bigger danger. And knowing the numbers wasn’t going to make that feeling any different.
I worked in our family business at the time, and I would go to the bank and make our deposits every day, stopping on my way back to pick up lunch. Sometimes I would have thousands of dollars in cash, which never bothered me before I was pregnant, because who would suspect that a casually dressed twenty-something would have thousands of dollars in cash? But after I was visibly pregnant, I felt more vulnerable. Most people I know have been involved in at least a minor car accident, but no one I know has been in a bank robbery. Using twisted paranoid logic, I felt that this fact made it more likely that it would happen to me. If I were pregnant and went to the bank almost every day, it stood to reason that my odds of being in a bank robbery were therefore that much higher. (When I explained this brilliantly reasoned theory to my husband, who had studied to be an economist and was then working as an auditor, he pragmatically and carefully replied that this difference, statistically speaking, might raise the likelihood of being a hostage from infinitesimal to not bloody likely. Of course I did not believe him. Was he pregnant? Did he understand the danger? No, no he did not.)
Like the people who worry needlessly about the danger of shark attacks while living in Minnesota, where it is far more likely that they'll get hit by a falling icicle, I was obsessed about banking safety and read every news story about bank robberies with professional interest. What kind of people robbed banks? (Mostly men.) What did the robbers wear? (Mostly casual clothes; very few robbers wear formal attire.) What were their preferred targets for hostages? (PROBABLY ME.)
I learned that bank robbers in the South Orange County area had their favorite banks. They, like everyone else, liked a bank that had easy access to the freeway, available parking near the door (for quick getaways) and short lines. Bank robbers have the same customer service needs as the rest of us. In a way, they are the paradigm customer, so to speak. Note to banks: have a retired robber evaluate your branches for ease of access and other issues.
In case you are planning something nefarious, the best time to rob a bank is when it isn't that busy; at those times there are fewer witnesses and people who might get in the way. Bank robbers seem to prefer between 9 and 11 on a Friday morning, even though robberies have happened later in the day. (Obviously there is a subset of robbers who must not like getting up early. I think of them as slacker robbers.) Their secret robber handbook must state that banks have more money on hand early on a Friday, for people who like to cash their paychecks. Most bank robbers pass a note to the teller asking for money, which tellers are trained to just hand over. (Some robbers have used one of their own personal deposit slips for this, not having a Post-It note available in their getaway cars. This, I feel, is unprofessional, for obvious reasons. They have paper and pens at the bank, slacker robbers! Do your homework!)
On my daily trips to the bank, I would scope out which of the branches I felt were most vulnerable with the precision of the Ocean’s Eleven team. The bank closest to the freeway onramp would be most dangerous, I decided, so I went to the Union Bank (now Wells Fargo), nearer to Leisure World. This decision had its own dangers, including having to wait behind really old people who refused to use checks and would methodically count out all of their money one bill at a time while the rest of us in line fidgeted, willing them to please finish already, so we could go get lunch.
Banks in malls or grocery stores were not as attractive a target to robbers as the banks near the freeway, I decided. The Bank of America at the El Toro Road offramp on the 5 going south was held up at least five or six times while I lived there, due to the easy freeway access. Note to self, I’d think, bank in a residential area. I made friends with all of the tellers at my favorite branch, mainly because I was there almost every day, and they'd give me tips: don't stand behind guys in hoodies or untucked plaid shirts. Watch out for nervous guys. Watch out for guys, period, since very few women rob banks.
When I confided my paranoid fears to the tellers, they actually took me seriously. Of course a pregnant woman is the best hostage. “Why don't you just use the drive up window?” they suggested. So for the next six months I used the drive up window, feeling much better about my chances. Several years later, after my banking days were long over, my dad called me, laughing, and told me the news that a pair of robbers had walked down the line of cars waiting at the drive up window at my favorite bank, and had methodically robbed them all.
My paranoia about a low-probability, high-consequence event like a bank robbery is very common. Economists call these events “dread risks,” and people do crazy things to avoid them (like driving 800 miles instead in flying), even though the actions we take don’t really make us any safer. On the surface, it seems harmless to spend extra time driving to avoid a plane crash or the chance of a bank robbery. But our assessment of these and other dread risks is so notoriously irrational, and the steps we take to avoid them so extreme, that our avoidance behaviors cost us not just the extra time it takes to drive to a different bank or state, but billions of dollars and thousands of lives every year—more lives than have been lost in any bank robbery or plane crash.
Economist Gordon Tullock has argued that in order to bring some sense of the actual risk of driving (as opposed to the perceived risk), car manufacturers should install giant spikes in the center of steering wheels so people would be better able to visualize the actual hazard of driving recklessly—the theory being that you drive more carefully if there is a giant spike aimed at your heart. Economists call this imaginary spike a “Tullock spike” in his honor. Knowing this fact will make you sound very knowledgeable at dinner party discussions. You’re welcome.
When we make assumptions about our safety or health risks without carefully assessing the actual data, we take actions that are paradoxically more hazardous. We could all save ourselves a lot of needless worry (and billions of dollars) if we learned to think about risk in a more rational manner .
As for me, I do all of my banking online now, although I don't still seriously think I'm going to be killed in a hostage situation. It saves me from the dread risk of bank robbery, and the realistic risk of car travel. Please, for the love of God, don't tell me about the risks of cyber crime.
Note: If you are interested in more information about irrationality, you might enjoy reading Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely.
