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The number of fatalities and injuries seems minuscule because it's normalised over distance traveled. This makes sense, because air travel is the only way to m

by morsch 3y ago

The number of fatalities and injuries seems minuscule because it's normalised over distance traveled. This makes sense, because air travel is the only way to make voyages over this distance. But it also doesn't make sense for the same reason -- it's stupid to compare a 6000 mile holiday flight with a 6000 mile holiday road trip, because people don't routinely make those. You're still more likely to get injured on an eight hour car ride than on an eight hour flight, but the difference isn't a factor 600. In much the same way, air travel is also arguably moderately efficient in terms of CO2 per mile, except that it's also a super easy way -- in fact, practically the only way -- to accrue tens of thousands of miles every year, so the efficiency is kind of irrelevant.

sokoloff 3y ago
I know people who are already at the "if driving takes less than 8 hours, I'd rather drive than fly" level. Every additional inconvenience (or psychological impediment) added to the safest mode of long-distance travel has a risk of decreasing overall safety. It's not particularly relevant to an international flight into Japan, but the extent to which increasing annoyance/instilling fear of airline passengers causing people to drive instead must be weighed against the small safety benefit resulting from a policy of telling passengers "we think this phase of flight contains the most highly concentrated risk, so for the next 15 minutes, please put away all of your distractions, prepare for a possible crash, and try not to think about the fact that we could turn this aircraft into a tumbling, burning ball of wreckage at any moment." Something similar was the primary justification to support the continuation of "infant in arms" travel by passengers under the age of 2, with an expected 60:1 ratio of lives that would be lost if infants were required to occupy ticketed seats vs being carried in arms. https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/child_safety-Claussen.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/child_safety-Clau...
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  I once traveled for business from Salt Lake City to Fort Collins, Colorado. 1/2 hour to the airport + get to the airport 2 hours before flight + 1 hour direct flight to Denver + 1/2 hour to deplane + 1/2 hour to get bags + 1/2 hour to get rental car + 1 hour drive to Fort Collins. Total 6 hours. Seems like it actually totalled 7 but I don't remember where the extra time was. Versus 7 hours drive time from Salt Lake to Fort Collins. And if two people are going, you only drive one car, but you buy two plane tickets. And my car has more legroom than a coach seat. So, yes, flying is safer per mile, but the "under 8 hours" crowd also have a point...
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    I pretty much have gotten to where I only fly if driving is impossible (e.g. crossing an ocean).
- TylerE 3y ago
  That’s me. But for totally different reasons. I’m a 4-5 hour round trip by car to the nearest airport that actually flys anywhere. So unless it’s more than about a 8-10 hour drive, it’s faster (and way cheaper) to drive than fly.
- gambiting 3y ago
  We literally decided to drive from UK to Poland this year(12 hour overnight ferry + another 12 hours of driving) instead of flying, because we hate Christmas flying so much, it's always a shit show, we always end up ill because everyone is coughing, at least with driving we can take it at our own pace - we want to stop, we stop.
- d1sxeyes 3y ago
  For other people who might not have followed completely: the NTAB don’t say (explicitly) that forcing children to occupy a seat of their own would result in 60 times as many deaths. They estimated the risk of lap infant deaths as 1 every 10 years, and then they estimated that if the cost of travel increased for families, enough families would instead choose to drive that 60 infants would die in road accidents in that same 10 year period.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Thanks for posting that. It was perfectly clear in my head, but I really made a hash of describing it when summarizing it my post upthread.
- morsch 3y ago
  Unfortunately, there's very little detail on how they arrive at the 60:1 ratio in that PowerPoint presentation.
HPsquared 3y ago
Similar to the Jevons Paradox, where increases in energy efficiency often lead to greater overall consumption, as the higher efficiency broadens the scope of the activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
jrockway 3y ago
The statistics are also available as "per passenger-hour", which eliminates the speed factor. An 8 hour road trip is reasonable. An 8 hour flight is on the longer side.
- ta1243 3y ago
  An 8 hour flight is a normal intercontinental flight, not even particularly long (London - New York/Delhi/Nairobi/Dubai sort of distance). Longer flights like London-LA/Singapore/Joburg/Tokyo are perfectly normal, or reasonable. I would rarely do 8 hours driving in a single day, let alone 12. Certainly couldn't do that for work, would be massively against policy.

by morsch 3y ago

sokoloff 3y ago

I know people who are already at the "if driving takes less than 8 hours, I'd rather drive than fly" level. Every additional inconvenience (or psychological impediment) added to the safest mode of long-distance travel has a risk of decreasing overall safety. It's not particularly relevant to an international flight into Japan, but the extent to which increasing annoyance/instilling fear of airline passengers causing people to drive instead must be weighed against the small safety benefit resulting from a policy of telling passengers "we think this phase of flight contains the most highly concentrated risk, so for the next 15 minutes, please put away all of your distractions, prepare for a possible crash, and try not to think about the fact that we could turn this aircraft into a tumbling, burning ball of wreckage at any moment." Something similar was the primary justification to support the continuation of "infant in arms" travel by passengers under the age of 2, with an expected 60:1 ratio of lives that would be lost if infants were required to occupy ticketed seats vs being carried in arms. https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/child_safety-Claussen.pdf https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Documents/child_safety-Clau...

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
I once traveled for business from Salt Lake City to Fort Collins, Colorado. 1/2 hour to the airport + get to the airport 2 hours before flight + 1 hour direct flight to Denver + 1/2 hour to deplane + 1/2 hour to get bags + 1/2 hour to get rental car + 1 hour drive to Fort Collins. Total 6 hours. Seems like it actually totalled 7 but I don't remember where the extra time was. Versus 7 hours drive time from Salt Lake to Fort Collins. And if two people are going, you only drive one car, but you buy two plane tickets. And my car has more legroom than a coach seat. So, yes, flying is safer per mile, but the "under 8 hours" crowd also have a point...
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  I pretty much have gotten to where I only fly if driving is impossible (e.g. crossing an ocean).
TylerE 3y ago
That’s me. But for totally different reasons. I’m a 4-5 hour round trip by car to the nearest airport that actually flys anywhere. So unless it’s more than about a 8-10 hour drive, it’s faster (and way cheaper) to drive than fly.
gambiting 3y ago
We literally decided to drive from UK to Poland this year(12 hour overnight ferry + another 12 hours of driving) instead of flying, because we hate Christmas flying so much, it's always a shit show, we always end up ill because everyone is coughing, at least with driving we can take it at our own pace - we want to stop, we stop.
d1sxeyes 3y ago
For other people who might not have followed completely: the NTAB don’t say (explicitly) that forcing children to occupy a seat of their own would result in 60 times as many deaths. They estimated the risk of lap infant deaths as 1 every 10 years, and then they estimated that if the cost of travel increased for families, enough families would instead choose to drive that 60 infants would die in road accidents in that same 10 year period.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Thanks for posting that. It was perfectly clear in my head, but I really made a hash of describing it when summarizing it my post upthread.
morsch 3y ago
Unfortunately, there's very little detail on how they arrive at the 60:1 ratio in that PowerPoint presentation.

HPsquared 3y ago

Similar to the Jevons Paradox, where increases in energy efficiency often lead to greater overall consumption, as the higher efficiency broadens the scope of the activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

jrockway 3y ago

The statistics are also available as "per passenger-hour", which eliminates the speed factor. An 8 hour road trip is reasonable. An 8 hour flight is on the longer side.

ta1243 3y ago
An 8 hour flight is a normal intercontinental flight, not even particularly long (London - New York/Delhi/Nairobi/Dubai sort of distance). Longer flights like London-LA/Singapore/Joburg/Tokyo are perfectly normal, or reasonable. I would rarely do 8 hours driving in a single day, let alone 12. Certainly couldn't do that for work, would be massively against policy.