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The relevance of the metric depends on what you're using it for. If you decide whether to drive or fly to a destination based on how safe it is, risk/distance i
by lutorm 8y ago
The relevance of the metric depends on what you're using it for. If you decide whether to drive or fly to a destination based on how safe it is, risk/distance is a perfectly reasonable metric. Since flying is a means of transportation, it seems reasonable to judge the risk relative to the amount of transportation you get out of it.
That doesn't discount the fact that most of the risk is in take-off/landing, so if you use fleet-average statistics you'll bias the risk of short flights low and long flight high. Air safety studies do also use additional metrics like accidents/hour and accidents/segment, but those are mostly useful for comparing between different types of aviation.
- Zarel 8y agoI'm not sure how your comment addresses the core problem that risk/distance is not a reasonable metric if long-distance driving is less risky than short-distance driving, and you apply the short-distance driving risk to long-distance driving.
- manquer 8y agoAs a passenger on either it doesn't matter where the risk is concentrated . I am only interested in the outcome of how safe my journey is going to be. As a technology such differentiated metrics helps to understand aspects of flying which is why broken metrics are used by the industry in more focused forums.
- Zarel 8y agoBut that's exactly my point. As a passenger, it matters if the calculation of how safe your journey is is wrong. And the calculation is wrong if it doesn't take into account how long the drive is.