People are never afraid of the things that are most dangerous to them. People fear things like lightning, plane crashes, poisonous snake bites, and carjackings. They don't fear car accidents, which are much more likely to maim or kill them or those they love. People fear disfiguring or embarrassing diseases, breast cancer, AIDS, flesh-eating bacteria, west Nile virus, and weird new diseases. They don't react have as much to the flu (killed more people that WWI in 1917, I think, alone), heart attacks, or high blood pressure.
Example: one of my children is afraid of birds. Can't stand them. At the zoo, the Foilkid made googly eyes at the lion and the tiger, one of whom was very definitely licking his chops behind the glass. Did the same with that nice cuddly polar bear, the hyena, the jackals, the wolves. You name it, if it was big, furry, had sharp teeth, and was definitely thinking "Lunch!" when it saw the Foilkid, she liked it. We leave the large vicious predators who won't think a small child big enough for an appetizer area out into the general zoo walking around area, and the deadly-peacock-of-danger approached us (these vicious birds walk around freely, mainly because they have brains the size of a walnut, are harmless, and are useless unless you want a nice display of tail feathers and can't afford to go to Las Vegas) and the Foilkid literally climbed up my body to escape the terrible awful evil peacock of doom. This has never changed. Not a rational reaction really.
I'm the same with spiders. Now, if an animal is ever going to take me down, I don't think it's going to be an arachnid, but they are truly loathsome to me.
What is the mechanism by which people mis-identify true threats? Is there an area of the brain?
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