All big accidents have early clues that are not big at all, but?
If you deliberately cause or allow a big issue to arise so that you can show off dealing with it, thats called hero syndrome, though this isnt an official psychological term (Hero syndrome - Wikipedia) and includes both a mentally maladjusted desire for recognition, or the cynical intention to benefit from it: I suspect thats what Wikipedia means by mentioning politicians who are sane but, to put it plainly, evil. Apart from this, people are, as you say, lazy or negligent about small precautions to prevent trouble. For instance, the recent crashes of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft were attributed to several decisions to design a new aeroplane but without training pilots to fly it properly - lazy (or miserly); instead, it has a computer control system so that to a pilot, it feels like flying the older types of plane. One function of the computer is to prevent the plane from stalling, turning upwards so that, briefly, it is not able to fly. This operates from a single stalling detector - lazy or miserly - and if that does not operate correctly, then the computer falsely detects a stall, turns the plane down, down, and down. There are other mistakes in the story, too. Someone may correct me, but I think this story is a little short of heroes. The plane pilots did their job, and everyone died anyway. But it is normal social behaviour to step in to help in a full-blown crisis. Its better to prevent one, although you may not be rewarded, and you usually dont know that something really bad didnt happen because what you did stopped it.