Society is too risk averse, warn risk managers

Risk managers are worried that society is becoming too risk averse.

A show of hands at the Institute of Risk Management's annual risk forum showed an almost unanimous belief that regulation of behaviour has become too extensive and too detailed.

The vote was taken after presentations from two keynote speakers on the opening day of the forum at the University of Keele in Staffordshire.

The speakers were Professor John Adams of University College, London, an internationally respected iconoclastic writer on risk, and Professor Colin Pillinger, leader of the ill-fated British attempt to land Beagle 2 on Mars.