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I just dont agree with the entire notion that its the safest form of travel. Statistically there are faaar fewer plane crashes but when a plane does crash it usually comes with everyone on board dying.
This popular misconception is based on widespread ignorance of the facts. In point of fact, in an average year a few crashes, somewhere in the world, kill all the passengers. Since these are the ones that get all the news coverage, people understandably come to think of that as the norm, when it is not. In truth...
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Even if you are involved in a plane crash, the chances are you will survive - 95.7% of people involved in one do. Even in the most serious class of crashes, more than 76% of those on board live to tell the tale.
And as to the odds of dying in a crash... the truth shall set you free...
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The odds that the average American will die in a plane crash is just one in 11 million, whereas the odds for the average American dying in a car crash are around one in 5,000.
Auto accidents are so prevalent because you are constantly in very close proximity to other autos, which just makes the changes of an accident so much higher.
Also, a large number of auto deaths involve DUI's which are almost non-existent in commercial or military air travel.
Agreed! I feel much safer on the ground, regardless of what the statistics say. And I think the statistics might be a little skewed, because they compare travel miles I believe. And jets traveling at 600 MPH obviously travel each mile faster than cars traveling 65 MPH, so naturally, traveling by car exposes you to more drive time than traveling by air. But is that best way to compare air travel to car travel?
If I trusted my 'feelings' over statistics (or, as I like to call them in this case, reliably demonstrated reality) then I would never fly. I cannot understand - on an emotional (or, 'feeling') level - why ungainly airliners stay aloft. But statistics tell me they do, and do so with extreme reliability.
Frankly, I think the idea of 'feelings' trumping empirical evidence is beyond ridiculous.
For every 9 miles the average American drives, the average American flies 2 miles [see above]. Taking the fatality stats from any one year is problematic, because there may be no fatal major airline crashes in the U.S. in a year, or there may be one or more. But the automobile fatality total is much more stable. While they have been steadily dropping, the drop is gradual and fairly regular (with the occasional blip upwards).
In 2012, there were 33,561 traffic fatalities in the U.S.. 2/9ths of that number is roughly 7,500. When was the last time air fatalities even approached 1,000 in the U.S. in a year, much less 7,500? Or, for that matter, even 100 in a year? A: 2001. Thirteen long years ago. And even that year's total (slightly over 500, due to the American Airlines flight down in Queens, and the four airliners involved in the 9/11 attacks) gave a fatality that was just a fraction of the per-mile rate for automobiles. List of motor vehicle deaths in U.S. by year - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As for the time factor (airliners are faster), so what? That's an aspect of the differences in travel! But it doesn't change the fact that on a mile-for-mile basis, air travel is safer. Much safer.
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Originally Posted by deevel79
I'd rather something go wrong when I'm grounded in my car though.
Lets take these 2 scenarios.
1. I'm in my car and I catch a flat. I either pull off and change it myself or call for assistance and have someone else do it.
2. I'm in a plane and upon decending the pilot discovers the landing gear isnt opening up in which case YOU'RE TOTALLY SCREWED!!! Now there are procedures for such a thing but they are very risky which can lead to a crash/explosion/etc upon landing.
And the reality is that the odds of the landing gear not opening on a plane is far, far, far lower than the odds of some idiot blowing a red and t-boning you at 70mph.
Do you know what happens when the landing gear doesn't open? You get a wild landing, half a dozen people get minor injuries sliding down the inflatable ramp, and that's that.
Do you know what happens when someone blows a red and t-bones you? You either enjoy an extended hospital stay, or you die.
Hint - that's the reason 30k+ people die on U.S. roads yearly, but there have been fewer than 200 total fatalities on American airliners since 2002.
As an aside, you do know that blowouts are vastly more common than landing gear malfunctions, right? Blowouts (or, if you prefer, 'tires that go flat suddenly at speed') kill several hundred people a year. Can you tell us the last time anyone at all died because the landing gear wouldn't go down? No? Me, neither.
People get t-boned all the time in cars. How often to air-to-air crashes happen? In the U.S.? Seriously, the most recent that comes to mind is the Aeromexico flight over Los Angeles in 1986. Want to compare the 64 people on that airliner who died to the countless tens of thousands who have dies in the last 28 years getting t-boned in automobiles?
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Now I'm not against air travel as I travel by air 3-4 times per year. I just dont agree with the entire notion that its the safest form of travel. Statistically there are faaar fewer plane crashes but when a plane does crash it usually comes with everyone on board dying.
Yes, the odds of surviving a plane crash are lower than the odds of surviving an automobile crash. But 'safety' is a function of those odds times the odds of being in a crash in the first place - and the odds of being in an automobile crash on a mile-per-mile basis is exponentially higher than being in an air crash.
Which is why on a mile-by-mile basis - ie, the definition of safely - automobile crashes kill so many more people than airline crashes.
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Originally Posted by el_marto
Well this is why we can't always trust our intuition, sometimes our instinct just doesn't turn out to be true. Stats, while derided by many, are not necessarily useless.
Amen. I get woozy standing by the window of a tall building. But I have enough information to know that I'm not going to fall through the window.
In addition, I hate riding in cars, even with a better driver than myself. I am simply much more comfortable when I am in control. But I don't confuse my feelings for actually being safer.
I'd rather something go wrong when I'm grounded in my car though.
Lets take these 2 scenarios.
1. I'm in my car and I catch a flat. I either pull off and change it myself or call for assistance and have someone else do it.
2. I'm in a plane and upon decending the pilot discovers the landing gear isnt opening up in which case YOU'RE TOTALLY SCREWED!!! Now there are procedures for such a thing but they are very risky which can lead to a crash/explosion/etc upon landing.
Now I'm not against air travel as I travel by air 3-4 times per year. I just dont agree with the entire notion that its the safest form of travel. Statistically there are faaar fewer plane crashes but when a plane does crash it usually comes with everyone on board dying.
Actually more people survive plane crashes than are killed in them. But who cares about data? It's the feeling that counts :-). And car travel feels safer because almost everyone has survived a car accident or breakdown of some kind.
What scares people about flying isn't the likelyhood of a crash, so much as the idea of mechanical trouble thousands of feet up, and the terror of being in a tumbling, plummeting plane full of screaming people, knowing that death is seconds away. Car wrecks usually come out of nowhere. There is no time to panic. It's just, oh no, BAM!
Although It may be, what's the likelihood of you surving a plane crash vs car crash. I dont know about you but I'd MUCH rather be on the ground in the event of engine or mechanical failure rather than 30,000 feet in the air over the mid atlantic.
Statistically speaking, yes air travel is safer than traveling by car, but what's the survival rate regarding accidents for both modes of transportation?
Your argument doesn't really make much sense. Air travel is safer than driving simply based on the number of accidents compared with the number of miles traveled.
"Air travel is the safest way to travel" is still a valid saying. You're making the argument that plane crashes are worse than car crashes. And I don't think there's anyone out there disputing that.
I love flying, and love how safe I am compared to when I'm driving along in my own car, or on the train, etc.... These days only around 500 people die in plane crashes in year worldwide, whereas in the UK alone 2,000 are dead in car crashes in the same space of time. I feel much safer flying than any other form of transportation because I know the facts, including how secure aircraft are compared to other transport. This includes levels of maintenance, the six monthly intensive training pilots are required to go through (more than in ANY other profession) and I could go on. I am flying again on monday and can't wait.
Agreed! I feel much safer on the ground, regardless of what the statistics say. And I think the statistics might be a little skewed, because they compare travel miles I believe. And jets traveling at 600 MPH obviously travel each mile faster than cars traveling 65 MPH, so naturally, traveling by car exposes you to more drive time than traveling by air. But is that best way to compare air travel to car travel?
More people arrive safely by air than by auto so it must truly be safer.
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