4 ms·

Do you think your car (or bike) is safer or more dangerous than the least safe Boeing plane in service?

by bradleyjg 2y ago

Zigurd 2y ago
Per mile or per hour?
- bradleyjg 2y ago
  Either.
somenameforme 2y ago
These numbers are always pretty BSy because the big dangers in flight are take-off and landing. Comparing distances just completely obfuscates everything for no real gain. You can illustrate this clearly with some sort of reductio ad absurdum. Imagine we have an interstellar ship traveling many trillions of miles, but that blows up 90% of the time. If you look at it in terms of this same deaths/mile metric it'd still be way safer than driving, but obviously it isn't - which emphasizes that the metric is misleading. The most reasonable way would be safety per average trip, with some sort of multiplier for particularly long or particularly short trips. After all that's exactly what people think these numbers mean, even though they most certainly don't.
- krisoft 2y ago
  Okay. So let's compare accidents per flights to accidents per trip with bike/car. IATA reports 1.19 accidents per million flights in the 2019-2023 years. [1] Your turn to find a comparable number for road vehicles. 1: https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-02-28-01/ https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-02-28-0...
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    You pretty quickly shifted the goal posts there didn't you? That's for all flight vessels, not just Boeing's 737 class. You're also misreading your stats (that's per sector, not per million), but in either case I'm more interested in fatality rates. Your site gives a hull loss rate of 1 per 4.94 million flights for jets. For vehicles, the average person makes two trips a day over a total of 29.2 miles. [1] So we can say the average trip is 14.6 miles. And the average fatality rate is 1.33 per 100 million miles traveled [2]. So that's 1.33 fatalities per (100 / 14.6) = 6.8 million trips, or 1 fatality per 5.17 million trips. So on a first level analysis, vehicles are slightly safer than jets on a trip for trip basis. But the math I'm doing dramatically understates the actual difference, because the mortality numbers I'm using for vehicles are per person, not per fatal incident. In other words 1 PERSON dies per 5.17 million vehicle trips. And I'm comparing that against one entire JET 'dying' per 4.94 million flights, which is generally going to have tens to hundreds of people on it. If you do an apples to apples comparison, vehicles would be some orders of magnitude safer than jets, trip for trip. Of course ideal would be to ignore population and just look at car incidents with at least 1 fatality vs plane incidents with at least 1 fatality, but I can't find those stats unfortunately. [1] - https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-motorists-drive/ https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-moto... [2] - https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...
    - krisoft 2y ago
      > You pretty quickly shifted the goal posts there didn't you? No my dude. You said "These numbers are always pretty BSy because the big dangers in flight are take-off and landing." That is a statement about these kind of statistics in general, not in specific to Boeings. But sure. How many accidents had Boeing during take-off or landing? > You're also misreading your stats (that's per sector, not per million) Negative. To quote "All accident rate (accidents per one million flights)" What is even per sector? > Your site Not my site? Are you arguing from good faith here? > If you do an apples to apples comparison, vehicles would be some orders of magnitude safer than jets, trip for trip. I will let everyone know who is considering commuting by jet twice a day for 14.6 miles.
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        The post I was responding to was speaking precisely about "the least safe Boeing plane in service." The fact that airplanes are, trip for trip, much safer than planes is something I did not appreciate at the time when making my post. I expected most planes to be safer than vehicles, but Boeings falling well below average. The fact that vehicles are substantially safer than any plane, trip for trip, is far beyond what I expected. And it's going to make Boeing's look like death traps by comparison. Imagine we're comparing a long flight thousands of miles around the world to a short little domestic flight between a couple of relatively nearby cities. Which flight do you expect to get the latest, most stable, and secure plane? Most of everybody would expect it to be the international flight. In reality, it's the short little domestic flight. The reason is that with planes a trip that goes on for thousands of miles is, in general, almost exactly as dangerous as the briefest of trips imaginable. Take off, landing, and pressurization are where basically all the risk (and wear and tear) come into play. So your little plane going on a hundred mile voyage is going to be exposed to far greater risks than the one traveling thousands of miles. It's why the stats, as typically offered - deaths/mile, are extremely disingenuous. And they serve very little purpose other than to mislead those who don't know better, which is the overwhelming majority of people. As for the exact numbers, reread your own source, and include the entire quote. You're having a failure where you keep misreading something the same way. Keep in mind you quoted 1.19 for 2019-2023.
- drstewart 2y ago
  >The most reasonable way would be safety per average trip Let's reductio ad absurdum this. I take my 1000CC motorcycle around the block every 10 minutes for a year. Safest transportation mode on the planet! Way safer than walking (which I did once down the middle of a highway, blindfolded)

Do you think your car (or bike) is safer or more dangerous than the least safe Boeing plane in service?

Zigurd 2y ago

Per mile or per hour?

bradleyjg 2y ago
Either.

somenameforme 2y ago

These numbers are always pretty BSy because the big dangers in flight are take-off and landing. Comparing distances just completely obfuscates everything for no real gain. You can illustrate this clearly with some sort of reductio ad absurdum. Imagine we have an interstellar ship traveling many trillions of miles, but that blows up 90% of the time. If you look at it in terms of this same deaths/mile metric it'd still be way safer than driving, but obviously it isn't - which emphasizes that the metric is misleading. The most reasonable way would be safety per average trip, with some sort of multiplier for particularly long or particularly short trips. After all that's exactly what people think these numbers mean, even though they most certainly don't.

krisoft 2y ago
Okay. So let's compare accidents per flights to accidents per trip with bike/car. IATA reports 1.19 accidents per million flights in the 2019-2023 years. [1] Your turn to find a comparable number for road vehicles. 1: https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-02-28-01/ https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-02-28-0...
- somenameforme 2y ago
  You pretty quickly shifted the goal posts there didn't you? That's for all flight vessels, not just Boeing's 737 class. You're also misreading your stats (that's per sector, not per million), but in either case I'm more interested in fatality rates. Your site gives a hull loss rate of 1 per 4.94 million flights for jets. For vehicles, the average person makes two trips a day over a total of 29.2 miles. [1] So we can say the average trip is 14.6 miles. And the average fatality rate is 1.33 per 100 million miles traveled [2]. So that's 1.33 fatalities per (100 / 14.6) = 6.8 million trips, or 1 fatality per 5.17 million trips. So on a first level analysis, vehicles are slightly safer than jets on a trip for trip basis. But the math I'm doing dramatically understates the actual difference, because the mortality numbers I'm using for vehicles are per person, not per fatal incident. In other words 1 PERSON dies per 5.17 million vehicle trips. And I'm comparing that against one entire JET 'dying' per 4.94 million flights, which is generally going to have tens to hundreds of people on it. If you do an apples to apples comparison, vehicles would be some orders of magnitude safer than jets, trip for trip. Of course ideal would be to ignore population and just look at car incidents with at least 1 fatality vs plane incidents with at least 1 fatality, but I can't find those stats unfortunately. [1] - https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-motorists-drive/ https://newsroom.aaa.com/2015/04/new-study-reveals-much-moto... [2] - https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...
  - krisoft 2y ago
    > You pretty quickly shifted the goal posts there didn't you? No my dude. You said "These numbers are always pretty BSy because the big dangers in flight are take-off and landing." That is a statement about these kind of statistics in general, not in specific to Boeings. But sure. How many accidents had Boeing during take-off or landing? > You're also misreading your stats (that's per sector, not per million) Negative. To quote "All accident rate (accidents per one million flights)" What is even per sector? > Your site Not my site? Are you arguing from good faith here? > If you do an apples to apples comparison, vehicles would be some orders of magnitude safer than jets, trip for trip. I will let everyone know who is considering commuting by jet twice a day for 14.6 miles.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      The post I was responding to was speaking precisely about "the least safe Boeing plane in service." The fact that airplanes are, trip for trip, much safer than planes is something I did not appreciate at the time when making my post. I expected most planes to be safer than vehicles, but Boeings falling well below average. The fact that vehicles are substantially safer than any plane, trip for trip, is far beyond what I expected. And it's going to make Boeing's look like death traps by comparison. Imagine we're comparing a long flight thousands of miles around the world to a short little domestic flight between a couple of relatively nearby cities. Which flight do you expect to get the latest, most stable, and secure plane? Most of everybody would expect it to be the international flight. In reality, it's the short little domestic flight. The reason is that with planes a trip that goes on for thousands of miles is, in general, almost exactly as dangerous as the briefest of trips imaginable. Take off, landing, and pressurization are where basically all the risk (and wear and tear) come into play. So your little plane going on a hundred mile voyage is going to be exposed to far greater risks than the one traveling thousands of miles. It's why the stats, as typically offered - deaths/mile, are extremely disingenuous. And they serve very little purpose other than to mislead those who don't know better, which is the overwhelming majority of people. As for the exact numbers, reread your own source, and include the entire quote. You're having a failure where you keep misreading something the same way. Keep in mind you quoted 1.19 for 2019-2023.
drstewart 2y ago
>The most reasonable way would be safety per average trip Let's reductio ad absurdum this. I take my 1000CC motorcycle around the block every 10 minutes for a year. Safest transportation mode on the planet! Way safer than walking (which I did once down the middle of a highway, blindfolded)