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"Per trip" is an utterly meaningless way of looking at the data. Some car trips last ten minutes and a 10 or 12 hour flight isn't uncommon. You know for a fact

"Per trip" is an utterly meaningless way of looking at the data. Some car trips last ten minutes and a 10 or 12 hour flight isn't uncommon. You know for a fact that it's more dangerous to drive from NYC to Miami than it is to drive to the grocery store and back, so why would you use a meaningless statistic like this? I would say the most sensible is "per passenger hour", followed by "per passenger mile", since in some cases one might be choosing between driving somewhere and flying there. By both of these metrics, airplanes are much safer than cars.

tstrimple 2y ago
> I would say the most sensible is "per passenger hour", followed by "per passenger mile" Not trying to be contrarian or anything but I'm curious why. Another comment mentioned the material difference in available options between comparing an 8 hour flight to an 8 hour drive. In my mind, the only meaningful metric then would be the "per passenger mile". This should be emphasized by the fact that there are destinations that literally no amount of driven miles will get you to. The utility provided from 8 hours of flight versus 8 hours of driving are so drastically different I can't imagine how you'd compare them. 8 hours of flight will let you visit roughly a quarter of the world. 8 hours of driving won't even get you a quarter of the way across the US.