It's sometimes called calculating MTBF. And it is not silly. And nobody mentioned relying on miracles over getting brakes fixed until you did. That is called a straw man.
And my reference to paranoia refers to a badly expressed sense of MTBF. Anyone who worries about everyday contingencies has not done his math.
We are all going to die. How one copes with this fact is personal, but obsessive concern for contingencies over which we have no control is sick.
Saying that one relies on miracles to get through ordinary days is, at the very least, bad writing.