I might also add that in 96 successful CAPS pulls over 20 years not one person on the ground has ever been injured.
I accept that this statement as written, may be correct, though I can think of at least one case where an unsuccessful CAPS deployment resulted in both occupant and ground fatalities. Perhaps, had the pilot been able to control the path of the plane to the surface, the pilot could have reduced the severity of the crash.
I can think of several CAPS deployments where it is a certainty that the use of CAPS has minimized the severity of the crash. In the cases which come to mind, had the airplane been over a more suitable landing surface, a gliding landing would also have worked. I can also think of a number of CAPS "arrivals" into a place where a successful glide landing was obviously possible too. Sure the occupants survived, and only a plane was wasted. That's okay, if planes and insurance are cheap. Neither of my planes are CAPS equipped, nor insured for hull, so while I'm flying, I tend towards making more of my flying lower risk in all respects ('cause a lot of it is my risk!), and I practice forced landings regularly, for my own piece of mind.
Of course, it is a pilot's choice to select a CAPS equipped airplane, and thereafter their responsibility to fly it in consideration of its design features and limitations. However, having an added safety element should not lure the pilot into surrendering control if a safe power off landing could be made. And... as the pilot has chosen to fly over people, but the people have not chosen to be flown over, the pilot bears all of the responsibility to not endanger people on the ground with the risks of the flying. If this means that the pilot needs to steer the plane such as to increase their personal risk, to reduce risk to innocent people on the ground, so be it. It is not the responsibility of people on the ground to accept risk, nor take action, to maintain their safety from an aircraft which is no longer in controlled flight. To me, that would mean that if a pilot has chosen to fly over a built up/crowded area, that pilot has 100% responsibility to steer a stricken plane well away from the people, even if doing so increases their risk. That's why landing on a smooth, yet crowded road is a much less good choice, that the risk of flipping over in the plowed field next to the road. The pilot has to accept the risk, not place it on other people....