5 ms·

You're comparing apples to oranges. Compare pilots to drivers or cars to planes. I would guess that somewhere north of 90% of crashes are human error mainly o

• skybrian 7y ago
  I didn't actually do the comparison. I asked a question. You can choose your own methodology. But if you die, it doesn't matter whether it's human error or not, so it might be better to compare overall risk from all causes?
  • benj111 7y ago
    I understood it to be a rhetorical question, apologies if I misunderstood. Driving encompasses both mechanical and human risks. Here we are talking about just the mechanical, so I don't think the comparison is particularly fair.
• mikepurvis 7y ago
  There are pieces beyond just equipment failure and operator error: things like infrastructure and process. Infrastructure has less of an impact in the sky, where the plane is pretty self-reliant, but process is huge, with maintenance schedules, co-pilots, ATC, etc all making the flying experience safer. On the ground, it's the opposite. There's very little process around driving your car, but there's a lot of infrastructure. How roads and intersections are built, what signage is used and where, how and how much different modes are protected and isolated from each other, all have an enormous impact on road safety. This is one of the key tenets of "Vision Zero", that blaming driver error is not an acceptable answer for why people die on the road. People make mistakes all the time, including while driving, and we have a moral responsibility to design systems and infrastructure that eliminate or minimize human death and suffering, even in the face of human error.