Here's an example of a very typical knife design:
Look at where the arrow points. That's a blade part that extends from the handle orthogonal to the knife axis and it's pretty thin and its side actually continues into a very sharp blade edge.
My concern is the following. Suppose I need to cut a chicken carcass. I will want to stick the knife deep and then start cutting. What if while I'm sticking the knife my hand slips along the handle onto that edge pointed to by the arrow?
I expect an epic cut should that happen so I've been avoiding such knife design for years and always preferred knifes where there's a piece of plastic extending from the handle in from of that blade edge (kind of hilt or guard). Maybe I'm just overly paranoid about this.
Is there real risk of having a cut while cutting food in the scenario I described?