Make an apples to apples comparison. You're talking apples to bananas or some other odd fit.
If you had never driven a car before and I told you that three and a half thousand people were killed each year in the UK in driving accidents then I wouldn't criticise you for asking about risk reducion.
No, but you're probably think me an idiot for asking for a parachute.
You see, the parachute has as much to do with driving a car for the first time as it has to do with night flight.
Do risk elimination. Not risk management. Not risk reduction. Seek to eliminate risk by either not turning a hazard into a risk (a risk is a hazard put in play), opening a back door to eliminate the risk (by allowing alternatives), or do something different entirely.
Well you may as well just stay in bed.
You may as well just stay in bed, than what?
Than go fly?
Than go fly at night?
Than go fly at night without a parachute?
Than go fly during the day to eliminate the risk of the night flight?
A parachute is flexible, non-rigid. A parachute breathes, swings, stalls, sways, twists, collapses, drifts.
Would you consider your first solo as your first flight, with your instructor simply bailing out of the airplane? Of course not. You'd prefer to have some instruction, be taught to a standard, and be capable of flying and landing the airplane, as well as handling inflight elemental emergencies (such as a powerplant failure), before you solo. Being tossed to the wolves, as it were, by being soloed in the middle of your first flight, would be idiotic.
How about making your first parachute jump without any instruction or previous parachute experience? You really think that leaving the safety of a fully controllable airplane is better than jumping into the dark?
Your parachute is a folded bit of fabric wrapped in a ball and tucked at the ends. It's deployed with a smaller parachute, spring-loaded, designed to pop out and catch the slipstream, pulling the main parachute off your butt or back. The small parachute is attached to the big paracute by a bridle, or long cord, and that cord can wrap around your body, the airplane, or other parts of the parachute harness or your clothing or equipment, rendering the parachute inoperative. I've experienced this.
If the parachute opens in the airplane and even a small bit of it gets to the slipstream, that small bit can very quickly become a big bit, and can peel the side of the airplane away like the key on a spam can. You're then strained through that little opening like strained peaches. It happens. One of the most dangerous things in an airplane with parachutes is a parachute outside the container. A closing loop or cone or pin develops a problem on your pack, your ripcord gets snagged, and you've just introduced an open parachute pack in the airplane; a very, very dangerous condition. It's especially dangerous for you if you have a parachute you can't cut away.
Parachutes aren't guaranteed. They're bundles of fabric that depend on a very precise opening sequence, else they can malfunction. That's why when doing sport jumps we carry two parachutes; a main and a reserve. In some cases we carry a tertiary, or third canopy.
The majority of pilots who carry parachutes have never jumped a parachute, been in freefall, done a static line jump, experienced a parachute malfunction or trained for one, and know nothing about tree landings, powerlines and parachutes, water landings, downwind landings, canopy control.
You wouldn't consider flying a new type of airplane without at least a checkout. You wouldn't switch from airplanes to helicopters or gyroplanes without thorough instruction...but most strap on a parachute without a second thought, with no significant training (often with no training). Go figure. This is "
risk reduction?"