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It's only vastly less safe as a multiple to the other options, and not unsafe on an absolute basis. Similarly, driving NYC to LA is vastly less safe than flyin

It's only vastly less safe as a multiple to the other options, and not unsafe on an absolute basis. Similarly, driving NYC to LA is vastly less safe than flying from NYC to LA commercially. That doesn't make the roads unsafe.

mrtksn 7y ago
>driving NYC to LA is vastly less safe than flying from NYC to LA commercially How so? Is flying still safer than driving a well-maintained car and observer safety best practices? Or is it safer in regards to grand scheme of things and you might be one of those drivers that be drunk driving? Well, you can not drink and drive, it's not really random from a personal perspective.
- jonas21 7y ago
  Commercial air travel is about 110x safer in terms of fatalities per passenger mile than driving or riding in a car [1]. In 2014, incidents where at least one driver had a detectable amount of alcohol in their system accounted for 36% of traffic fatalities in the US. Even if you exclude those fatalities entirely, driving is still 70x more dangerous. Now of course you can claim that you're just a better driver than the average person (like 93% of Americans do [3]), but no matter how good of a driver you are, I doubt if it would come anywhere close to making up for a 70x difference. [1] http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix.pdf http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix.... [2] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812231 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8122... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
  - mrtksn 7y ago
    Sure, since the speed of the plane is about 8 times higher than an automobile cruise speed, obviously deaths per mile will be lower as each successful trip puts a lot of death-free miles in the books. Also, these statistics are about commercial flights on perfect routes v.s. all the drivers on all kind of roads. I looked a bit and it seems like the accidents on the highways are significantly less likely and the deaths rete per crash is lower too. A fairer comparison would be small chartered jets v.s. Uber, commercial coach services v.s. commercial flights on similar routes and so on. I don't know even if it's a meaningful comparison anyway, on long journeys or on short ones they do not overlap.
- robjan 7y ago
  When you are driving, it's not just your own driving and skill that's the risk. Almost anyone can decide to get into the driver seat of a car with any skill level, health status or level of intoxication. This person is now a risk to you. There are also factors like weather and obstacles. When you are in an aircraft, the biggest risk is takeoff and landing. After that, assuming a well maintained aircraft, most of the risk is mitigated by the fact that your flight deck has thousands of hours of experience and most major components of the aircraft have some level of redundancy. The crew are not even allowed to eat the same meal to rule out food poisoning.

mrtksn 7y ago

>driving NYC to LA is vastly less safe than flying from NYC to LA commercially How so? Is flying still safer than driving a well-maintained car and observer safety best practices? Or is it safer in regards to grand scheme of things and you might be one of those drivers that be drunk driving? Well, you can not drink and drive, it's not really random from a personal perspective.

jonas21 7y ago
Commercial air travel is about 110x safer in terms of fatalities per passenger mile than driving or riding in a car [1]. In 2014, incidents where at least one driver had a detectable amount of alcohol in their system accounted for 36% of traffic fatalities in the US. Even if you exclude those fatalities entirely, driving is still 70x more dangerous. Now of course you can claim that you're just a better driver than the average person (like 93% of Americans do [3]), but no matter how good of a driver you are, I doubt if it would come anywhere close to making up for a 70x difference. [1] http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix.pdf http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix.... [2] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812231 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8122... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
- mrtksn 7y ago
  Sure, since the speed of the plane is about 8 times higher than an automobile cruise speed, obviously deaths per mile will be lower as each successful trip puts a lot of death-free miles in the books. Also, these statistics are about commercial flights on perfect routes v.s. all the drivers on all kind of roads. I looked a bit and it seems like the accidents on the highways are significantly less likely and the deaths rete per crash is lower too. A fairer comparison would be small chartered jets v.s. Uber, commercial coach services v.s. commercial flights on similar routes and so on. I don't know even if it's a meaningful comparison anyway, on long journeys or on short ones they do not overlap.
robjan 7y ago
When you are driving, it's not just your own driving and skill that's the risk. Almost anyone can decide to get into the driver seat of a car with any skill level, health status or level of intoxication. This person is now a risk to you. There are also factors like weather and obstacles. When you are in an aircraft, the biggest risk is takeoff and landing. After that, assuming a well maintained aircraft, most of the risk is mitigated by the fact that your flight deck has thousands of hours of experience and most major components of the aircraft have some level of redundancy. The crew are not even allowed to eat the same meal to rule out food poisoning.