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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Worth noting that the per-mile and per-trip stats are different. Planes have low per-mile rates because nobody sane is using a plane to get across town. They only use planes for long-distance trips where driving/taking the train isn’t feasible. So by default, planes will have low per-mile rates because virtually every trip is a high mileage event. In short, planes drastically water down their per-mile averages.
When you look at it from a per-trip viewpoint, cars are safer. Which makes sense. You drive to work hundreds of times per year, but maybe ride a plane twice? So a single car crash is going to be a drop in the bucket when compared to the thousands of car trips you’ve taken in your life, but a single plane crash will be a massive spike in the numbers.
I just wanted to point out how statistics can be used to justify either side. Lots of people want to rely on numbers for everything, as if statistics can’t be manipulated. But they can, and you can bet your ass that if a party has a vested interest in stats showing one result over another, a team of statisticians can figure out a way to make it happen.
Additional consideration: How safe a car trip is, can be influenced a lot by the driver. As a frequent driver (I wished I could use trains instead, but our train system regularly sucks for many connections :( ), I feel that 95+ per cent of accidents could be avoided if the driver was driving careful themselves plus anticipating the errors of other drivers. I get into so many situations that could be dangerous for me as well, but I typically avoid the danger because I see the crazy people maneuvers coming before they execute them. My hopes are that on the occasions when I make a driving mistake, someone else will be there to watch out for me as well.
Long story short: In a plane, you\re putting your life into someone else's hand. In a car, you at least have the illusion of control, but I claim that you actually do have some control over avoiding accidents.
True, but statistically, the cases where a single thing going wrong causes an accident make up only a tiny fraction of car accidents. And freak accidents like "rockfall as you exit a tunnel" can also happen to planes - e.g. being shot out of the sky by russian war criminals.
Edit: additionally, capitalist corporations are by definition looking to maximize profits, meaning they cut corners - often outright criminally - which is what led to the article we're commenting on, and also to the murder of the full crew & passengers of two Boeing 737-MAX.
Still, I see no Boeing CEO charged with murder - or even manslaughter.
What I meant is: this on its own rarely ever leads to an accident. Most accidents are not cars flying off the road hitting a tree on their own. Most accidents involve multiple vehicles. And at that point it is the majority of accidents where the other affected drivers did not anticipate the mistake of the one causing the accident, and did not do anything to correct for said mistake.
With regards to Boeing, sadly you are very much correct:
That's actually my main problem with this. Legislation is built to protect corporations, not individuals. When there's a conflict of interests, corporations take precedence in 9 cases out of 10.
I am not saying all airliners look to cut corners criminally, but they often demonstrate criminal energy or are criminally negligent. This is a bigger problem in the US than in Europe, I feel - our corporate greed is closely following in the US corporation footsteps, though. Our CEOs et al wish they could pull off what the US american ones can already get away with.
If you are considering two modes of transportation for a airplane-suitable trip, the per-trip stat is effectively irrelevant. If we consider a 1,000 mile trip and want to choose the safest manner of travel to the destination aircraft will statistically be the safest transportation method.
Thank you, PM_Your_Nudes_Please, for an wonderfully insightful comment on the nature of statistics in transportation accidents.
Do you have any statistics about the total number of miles driven by cars every day vs. miles flown by planes daily? Somehow, just based on the amount of cars worldwide, I’d bet that there are far more miles driven by cars daily than miles flown by planes, so accidents per mile would still be a significant statistic. Because even though planes fligh thousands of miles per trip, cars are numbered in millions, in the US alone. So I’d bet that if every car trip was one mile, which is very conservative, you’d still have more miles driven daily than flown in the US. Which makes deaths per mile a lot more scary.
Accidents per trip would be relevant as well, but how many commercial airliners crash every day vs. how many cars crash every day? How many people die a year from commercial airline crashes vs. from car crashes? I’d bet that even per trip cars are less safe than planes.
I live in a mostly rural area, and we have had 4 deaths on the motorway nearby over the past 3 or 4 months. And that is just in one region,with low to moderate traffic and low population density (lots of farms and woods around here). Also, never knew anyone who died in a plane crash, in over 40 years, but have had 2 close friends die in car crashes, never mind acquaintances or friends of friends. And I bet everyone, in developing or developed countries, knows someone who died in a car crash, whereas I’d bet that most people don’t have even acquaintances or friend of friends that died in plane crashes.
So I’d really like to see numbers on that claim that, per trip, cars are safer, because in 2021, with no deaths from commercial planes in the US, that claim does not stand, because you could have an infinite number of car trips that year, and still be less safe than commercial planes with one single dead person.