Statistics tell parents that the world is not so dangerous for their children

… Despite the trepidation that naturally arises when releasing our kids into the big, bad world, statistics show that for the vast majority of American young people, their world is not as dangerous as it is so often made out.

Tragedies — car crashes, serious sports injuries, childhood suicide, water accidents, to name a few — touch thousands of families every year. There is no diminishing that hurt.

But for most people, in most situations, the odds are good that all will be fine.

Motor vehicle accidents, for example, sadly killed 13,000 youths in 2006. They’re the No. 1 killer of young people ages 1 to 24.

Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data reveal that the likelihood that a car wreck will take the life of someone before age 18 is about one in 10,000. Take away teen drivers, it’s about three in 100,000 for children 14 and younger.

Child abduction by a stranger, perhaps a parent’s worst fear?

“Of all the dangers to children, this is the one most alarming and the most frightening and probably the least likely to ever happen,” said Paula S. Fass, a University of California-Berkeley professor who wrote “Kidnapped: Child Abduction in America.”

The odds are about 1.5 in a million.  …