You are certainly right about kids not thinking, “what if something happens?”.
It seems like I’m always telling my kids stories or giving them warnings to think “what if the car breaks down, what if I slipped, what if they don’t show up, etc”.
Many adults also fail to just contemplate the what ifs, going for long scenic drives along untravelled roads, or relying on a precarious piece of equipment to not fail.
I lost one of my dearest friends ... died in the mountains on a long hike after not properly preparing for the “what ifs” & running into a snow storm. This certainly has changed the way I think about activities, evaluate risks, prepare, etc. I’ve also become more alert to getting caught in a ‘dominoe’ effect or ‘cascading’ of events ... some little thing goes wrong/you make a poor decision and you either don’t realize it or ignore it, the next little thing goes wrong, etc. and compounds the situation and on it goes (this is exactly what happened to my friend). If you don’t recognize that you are in this situation, you likely end up in a non-recoverable place. Adults have a hard enough time with this, much less kids/teenagers who tend to be more impulsive. Training (like survival) helps a lot, but most ‘regular’ kids just don’t get/have it.
“... always telling my kids stories... “what if the car breaks down, what if I slipped...”
I do that as well but I add the clean underwear part. If the car breaks down, you should have on clean undies, if I don’t show up... you should have clean undies on”. LOL!