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Imagine when we get the first interstellar ships. Even if 90% of them blow up at launch, it'd still be, by far, the 'safest' method of transit in existence if w

Imagine when we get the first interstellar ships. Even if 90% of them blow up at launch, it'd still be, by far, the 'safest' method of transit in existence if we use the deaths/mile stat. Even for planes the stat is deceptive. Most people, hearing about the safety of flight, would think that if they replaced their car with a plane then they'd be far less likely to die in a crash, but that would be untrue because the real risk in flight is take off and landing - the distance traveled is near irrelevant.

stvltvs 2y ago
Even assuming the stats are measuring the actual miles traveled and not the planned miles (I'm not sure that's true), the difference would be vanishingly small given how rarely planes crash on takeoff. The overwhelming majority of flights complete safely, so the denominator is barely changed at all if we don't include flights that crashed on takeoff.