4 ms·

Now do deaths per mile traveled for those modes of transport.

by jdkee 2y ago

jodrellblank 2y ago
Deaths per mile travelled for planes and cars designed and built before 1930, for a fair comparison. The Graf Zeppelin launched in 1928 did 1,000,000 miles with no crashes, deaths or injuries. How many other vehicles from the 1920s were that capable and safe?
tzs 2y ago
I'm not sure deaths per mile is a good way to compare different modes of transport. Suppose a company discovered warp drive and started offering trips to the Andromeda galaxy. Their warp starships can carry 100 passengers. Establishing the warp field is dangerous, and 99% of the time the result is an explosion that destroys the ship (and everyone aboard). If the warp field is successfully established actually traversing the warp field is safe enough that the chances of anything going wrong in transit are negligible. Those warp starships that kill 99% of their passengers would have a fatality rate per passenger mile 5 orders of magnitude lower than that of commercial airlines, and 8 orders of magnitude lower than that of automobiles but I doubt many people think is is safer.
- waldrews 2y ago
  Well, maybe it's still better than the alternative of trying to get there by chemically propelled rocket, and having a 100% chance of dying of old age on the way.
- xp84 2y ago
  I get your point technically, but I think the mildly fallacious part of your argument is that the warp example opens up the possibility of orders of magnitude farther travel in the first place, whereas most Earthbound modes of transport are not too far off from one another in their potential. Nobody’s driving a Corolla to the Andromeda Galaxy, or flying on a 737. Therefore no one ought to be comparing them on any distance-related metric, probably. Perhaps a pure “chances that a given person boarding the craft disembarks alive” metric would be better.
- jodrellblank 2y ago
  More relevant is that if someone straps wings on their back, jumps off a building and dies, that’s 1 death/0miles or infinity deaths per mile. To get deaths per mile down needs a long tail of safe mass use, and that comes after the rough early days of little use and lots of accidents. Cars got a lot less deathy after banning drunk driving, adding white lines on the roads, banning jaywalking - things outside Car technology - as well as seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, better headlights, power assisted brakes, antilock brakes. Zeppelins used Hydrogen and several deadly accidents were while emptying or refilling. Now there are better materials, equipment, OSHA rules, industries which deal with natural gas and gasoline and other dangerous gases and chemicals routinely which is outside Zeppelin technology but would help make them safer. One Zeppelin crash was the gas release valves sealed shut to save money. We have better regulation around airline safety to catch that kind of “safety device isn’t functioning” and expect failovers at the design stage, also outside them being Zeppelins and just general bad practice. One Zeppelin crash was a last minute extension to the design launched before it could be tested properly for political reasons, that’s an avoidable problem with regulatory bodies overseeing designs and builds - also general bass practice. Aircraft got safer once the copilot started flying and the pilot advised. Because of social power imbalances, it’s much easier for the pilot to correct the assistant, than for yer assistant to correct the pilot. Maybe that could benefit Zeppelins? Ocean travel got safer as ships learned to avoid the worst routes and weather, and with the Panama and Suez canals; by the time of the Titanic when lifeboat regulations were being discussed it was an argument that ships don’t crash enough anymore to benefit from lifeboats. Lots of Zeppelin problems with storms should be improved with todays weather prediction/reporting as well as storm-proof materials. Zeppelins stopped before all those kinds of changes/developments. Left in the era of men standing in a field holding onto them by ropes, altitude by sonar echo and stopwatch, radio by dangling a wire to use as an antenna, controlling speed by telling a man sitting by each engine to turn them up or down, then saying “high deaths per mile they must be inherently unsafe” is more scaremongering dismissal than genuine interested carefully reasoned position.

Now do deaths per mile traveled for those modes of transport.

by jdkee 2y ago

Now do deaths per mile traveled for those modes of transport.

Deaths per mile travelled for planes and cars designed and built before 1930, for a fair comparison. The Graf Zeppelin launched in 1928 did 1,000,000 miles with no crashes, deaths or injuries. How many other vehicles from the 1920s were that capable and safe?

tzs 2y ago

I'm not sure deaths per mile is a good way to compare different modes of transport. Suppose a company discovered warp drive and started offering trips to the Andromeda galaxy. Their warp starships can carry 100 passengers. Establishing the warp field is dangerous, and 99% of the time the result is an explosion that destroys the ship (and everyone aboard). If the warp field is successfully established actually traversing the warp field is safe enough that the chances of anything going wrong in transit are negligible. Those warp starships that kill 99% of their passengers would have a fatality rate per passenger mile 5 orders of magnitude lower than that of commercial airlines, and 8 orders of magnitude lower than that of automobiles but I doubt many people think is is safer.

waldrews 2y ago
Well, maybe it's still better than the alternative of trying to get there by chemically propelled rocket, and having a 100% chance of dying of old age on the way.
xp84 2y ago
I get your point technically, but I think the mildly fallacious part of your argument is that the warp example opens up the possibility of orders of magnitude farther travel in the first place, whereas most Earthbound modes of transport are not too far off from one another in their potential. Nobody’s driving a Corolla to the Andromeda Galaxy, or flying on a 737. Therefore no one ought to be comparing them on any distance-related metric, probably. Perhaps a pure “chances that a given person boarding the craft disembarks alive” metric would be better.
jodrellblank 2y ago
More relevant is that if someone straps wings on their back, jumps off a building and dies, that’s 1 death/0miles or infinity deaths per mile. To get deaths per mile down needs a long tail of safe mass use, and that comes after the rough early days of little use and lots of accidents. Cars got a lot less deathy after banning drunk driving, adding white lines on the roads, banning jaywalking - things outside Car technology - as well as seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, better headlights, power assisted brakes, antilock brakes. Zeppelins used Hydrogen and several deadly accidents were while emptying or refilling. Now there are better materials, equipment, OSHA rules, industries which deal with natural gas and gasoline and other dangerous gases and chemicals routinely which is outside Zeppelin technology but would help make them safer. One Zeppelin crash was the gas release valves sealed shut to save money. We have better regulation around airline safety to catch that kind of “safety device isn’t functioning” and expect failovers at the design stage, also outside them being Zeppelins and just general bad practice. One Zeppelin crash was a last minute extension to the design launched before it could be tested properly for political reasons, that’s an avoidable problem with regulatory bodies overseeing designs and builds - also general bass practice. Aircraft got safer once the copilot started flying and the pilot advised. Because of social power imbalances, it’s much easier for the pilot to correct the assistant, than for yer assistant to correct the pilot. Maybe that could benefit Zeppelins? Ocean travel got safer as ships learned to avoid the worst routes and weather, and with the Panama and Suez canals; by the time of the Titanic when lifeboat regulations were being discussed it was an argument that ships don’t crash enough anymore to benefit from lifeboats. Lots of Zeppelin problems with storms should be improved with todays weather prediction/reporting as well as storm-proof materials. Zeppelins stopped before all those kinds of changes/developments. Left in the era of men standing in a field holding onto them by ropes, altitude by sonar echo and stopwatch, radio by dangling a wire to use as an antenna, controlling speed by telling a man sitting by each engine to turn them up or down, then saying “high deaths per mile they must be inherently unsafe” is more scaremongering dismissal than genuine interested carefully reasoned position.