It’s counter-terrorism awareness week again. It seems to come round quicker every year. It’s not as upbeat as the US’s coincident Thanksgiving celebrations, but fear is a trendier emotion than gratitude so it all leaves the so-called “new world” looking rather last millennium compared to us. In fact, perhaps the week’s timing is no coincidence after all? Perhaps the counter-terrorism agencies are using our former colonies as an example of what can happen if insurrection from within goes unchecked: “Be vigilant or someone will chuck all your tea in the sea!”

I wouldn’t mind being aware of counter-terrorism for seven days a year if I could forget about it for the other 51 weeks. But I don’t think that’s the idea at all. I think we’re supposed to be perpetually counter-terrorism aware, just like terrorists are. They’re the shining exemplars of counter-terrorism awareness – they think about it all the time. “Emulate terrorist levels of counter-terrorism awareness!” is the message. “If you can be as constantly aware of security issues in a public place as you would be if you were plotting to blow it up, then you’ll be a good citizen (provided you are not plotting to blow it up).”

But those weren’t the slogans the counter-terrorism week planners went for. Instead, in a police leaflet handed out at transport hubs advising what to do in a “firearms and weapons attack”, they’ve gone with “Run. Hide. Tell.” When the blast of war blows in your ears, then imitate the action of the rat.

This is sensible advice if there’s an emergency. No one wants ordinary members of the public charging unto breaches without proper training. It could turn a terrorist atrocity into a health and safety nightmare from which we wake to a litigation shitstorm for breakfast. So it’s a reasonable thing to say.

It’s also an unnecessary thing to say. If people hear gunfire and explosions in a railway station or airport, they don’t need to be told to run away, take cover or tell someone about the issue. Anyone who can read a leaflet, and the vast majority of the illiterate, would do those things instinctively. It’s like a poster telling people to “Remember, if you let go of objects, they will fall to the ground!”

But the leaflet gives more detailed advice: “If you hear gunfire or a weapons attack, leave the area safely if you can. If this puts you in greater danger, find a safe place to take cover.” This raises more questions than it answers. How can you tell whether it’s safe to leave the area? How do you know when trying to flee would put you in greater danger than hiding? What sort of place would be safe to take cover in? You might say: everyone would use their common sense. But the leaflet’s target demographic appears to be people who don’t have any.

There is nothing helpful about this document: it advocates doing what people would do anyway and provides no tips on how to do so more effectively. Campaigns like this usually make sense because the courses of action being promoted are counterintuitive – “grasp the nettle”, “don’t pour water on a fat fire”, “steer into a skid”. The sort of advice holidaymakers are given for encounters with bears, lions or snakes: whatever you do, don’t run, but make yourself look big, or back away slowly, or shout, or charge towards it, or get someone to piss on the sting.

I can’t actually remember the details of any such tips I’ve received because I try not to fill my life with anxious contemplation of the ways I could die. I don’t believe perpetual nervous anxiety to be a price worth paying for marginally increasing my statistical chances of survival if disaster strikes. How many people, as they expire, think “If only I’d worried more!”? The tiny handful who have observed the wrong etiquette with an enraged cobra perhaps, but those who succumb to cancer, heart disease or being hit by a falling piano (and between them those three scourges kill most westerners) probably resent the time wasted learning anti-shark karate.

Which brings me to what I hate most about the leaflet. As well as its inane running and hiding suggestions, it also says: “Make a plan now and stay safe.” As in: make a plan for what to do if a terrorist sets off an explosion or goes mad with a gun while you’re on your way to work. As in: think about that eventuality in advance. A lot. Starting now.

No thanks. That doesn’t sound much fun. The chances of being killed, or nearly killed, in a terrorist outrage are really rather slight. I know Theresa May says that there could be one any minute – and that 40 have been foiled since 7/7. But even if we trust her – and I don’t trust her – that number is definitely a maximum. She’s got no incentive to underestimate, so no more than 40 will have been foiled. Even if they had all happened, and were all as bad as 7/7 and each killed 52 people, that’s only 2,080 dead in seven years. A tragic state of affairs, no doubt, but it would still leave terrorist attack as a more unusual way to die than falling down stairs. In terms of death-avoidance strategies, I’ll probably do myself more good keeping off the fags and trying to relax.

Some people may find it reassuring to plan for the worst – to fill a lock-up with fuel and tinned food, to work out how they’d kill and eat a cat, or burrow out of rubble, or treat radiation sickness, or swim through a tsunami of sewage – in anticipation of an anti-lottery win of bad fortune. Good luck to them. But I reckon they’re in the minority and, for most of us, this leaflet’s nebulous allusions to our potential demise are injurious to our mental wellbeing.

But this campaign isn’t really about doing us any collective good. It’s about an institution justifying and aggrandising its position. Those who are planning what they’d do in a firearms and weapons attack are not questioning police powers and funding, and are unlikely to oppose their increase. This superficially fatuous leaflet is, in truth, a political message: terror is lurking everywhere and only powerful, well-funded (and possibly armed) security services can protect you from it. The people behind this campaign are using fear to get what they want. I thought that was the kind of thing we didn’t give in to.

David Mitchell’s new book, Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse, is published by Guardian Faber (£18.99). Click here to buy it for £13.49