There is a basic misconception here about risk in the military. Double Bogey is adamant that the operation of the Dauphin in hover taxiing in fog beside a public road was reckless and indefensible, mainly because it was something he would never do himself, despite his 17k hours of safe flying.
I will concede it was risky, but then so is most military flying, and we can reasonably assume that this aircraft was military operated. We can only assume that the crew and passengers, if there were any, were fully aware of the risks and were comfortable to accept them.
What constitutes acceptable risk in this type of situation? It must include the capability of the equipment, eg the aircraft and its systems, the training, knowledge and experience of the crew, and the nature of the mission. The more important the mission, the greater the risk acceptance.
We do not know anything about these factors in this case. However, if the operators of this aircraft are who most of us think they are, I am confident that their professionalism and access to resources and technology not normally available to the rest of us means that the risk was carefully assessed and accepted as necessary and manageable.
It is a blinkered, black and white, catch-all, traffic warden mentality that leads to some posters expressing righteous outrage at this incident without knowledge of any relevant facts.