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> one of the safest modes of transportation How far do standards have to fall before that's no longer true? Recall also that aviation is the safest in aggrega
by nerdponx 3y ago
> one of the safest modes of transportation
How far do standards have to fall before that's no longer true?
Recall also that aviation is the safest in aggregate, but the severity of each individual incident tends to be much worse than others.
- concordDance 3y agoHard to find up to date data, but looks like about two orders of magnitude, from ~5 deaths per billion miles to 0.05.
- cjbprime 3y ago(Miles traveled is somewhat charitable to airlines and assumes trips are fungible between planes and cars.)
- oatmeal1 3y agoI'm not sure how you mean it's "charitable?" Could you explain?
- cjbprime 3y agoSure, sorry. Planes cover distance very quickly, and people use them for e.g. a six hour flight covering 4000 miles that they would not otherwise drive; this situation makes planes appear safer "per mile" than alternative valid metrics like "accidents per hour of travel" would.
- oatmeal1 3y agoWhat does the severity of the average incident have to do with whether I use a particular mode of transit? We could add lots of fender-benders between taxiing planes to push down the average severity of each plane "crash." Then they would still be less deadly per mile travelled, but also less severe per incident on average than other modes of transit.