Helicopters -- hold on -- and light general aviation are our best extant examples of flying cars. Here's what we should learn from them: - at current traffic l

Helicopters -- hold on -- and light general aviation are our best extant examples of flying cars. Here's what we should learn from them: - at current traffic levels, accidents are rare - but fatality rates are high (20% of helicopter accidents) - the commercial carriers have much better accident statistics than general aviation - commuter and on-demand flights are much worse than commercial scheduled flights - rather more than half of all accidents have a root incident near an airport - taxi-ing, departure, initial climb, approach, landing. My conclusion is that mass adoption of flying cars (as in, millions of people piloting small aircraft with varying levels of maintenance, safety inspections, training, and traffic control) would be a terrifyingly foreseeable disaster. On the other hand, I hold out real hope for fully autonomous vehicles being potentially safer than a distracted teenager on the road.