However, you'd have to say that fear of animals like this is a pretty good evolutionary development designed to protect us from threats where are own knowledge doesn't let us know for sure if it's safe or not (i.e. when it comes to snakes, most of us won't recognise how safe or not a snake is, so it's safer for us to be afraid of all of them.)
Let me give an anecdotal example. My college has a reputation with snakes, so much so that pea-cocks were artificially introduced to control their population. I would hazard a conservative guess that 50% of all students encounter a snake in close proximity every year. These are almost always a cobra, krait or local species of a viper. All extremely poisonous. Nonetheless in the entire history of the institution there has not been a single instance of a snake bite, and they have actually stopped stocking on anti-venom.
But unless you are trained to handle snakes, picking them up is certainly not wise and my prior would be high that she did not have such a training.
What I found fascinating was the difference in aggression level of the same species at different times of the year. The speed of their strike also blew me away. But they can cover very short distances with that, so the trained handlers would pick them up like nothing.
But back to fear and reflexes. I had the opportunity to study one of the aggressive ones very closely in a protective enclosure. How much ever I resolved not to flinch when it lunged at me, I would invariably jump back a pace. The override is just way too strong to control consciously even when you can anticipate it and want to counter it. Even when you know you are not in any danger.
What I find interesting is that I dont think we are hardwired to fear snakes, it is learned. The hardwired bit might relate to sudden motion though.