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I am no more afraid of flying than I am of walking down the sidewalk to check my mail. I probably have about as much of a chance of being killed by a falling limb as I do being killed in a plane crash.
thefragile, I'm with you. I fly because I have to. I hate it. I know it's safer than driving. I know my fears are irrational. I worked in the industry & still hate flying.* Stats be damned...my fear is just part of me & that's that.
Sigh. As I said before, I fly I just hate it & I take drugs to get through it. Whoever said I haven't acknowledged it? Clearly, I just did. Is there a reason why one can't just let someone have a fear of something without getting preachy about it? I fear flying, big deal, millions of people fear it. Millions of people have other fears. There are people who fear driving but still drive. There are people who fear public places but still go out in public. Why such disdain for a fear of flying? It's a little obnoxious.
I don't know if you are referring to my post, or another. If me, I clearly said people who actually fear flying have a legit phobia, and it should be acknowledged. I sympathize with you, as I have a couple of intense phobias myself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mack Knife
That isn't quite correct. These stats always come up as do the comments about how flying is statistically safer than driving and so on. The comparisons are invalid on their face values.
Death by traffic collision is very regional as far as frequency goes. It is also liked to type of vehicle in the collision and so on.
Cars do not drop out of the air and collide with the ground. If you compare like circumstances, cars are exponentially safer to be in that air planes. Then you have professional pilots vs non-professional car drivers so again, the comparisons aren't really valid. Lets compare the chances of being killed in a vehicular accident when a professional driver is at the wheel and then only account for those instance where the vehicle leaves the roadway and impacts the ground.
No matter how you cut it, the comparison isn't valid. The only reason the comparisons like this are used is because if they weren't, the stats would show the risk to be much greater than the manipulation of stats show now.
As always, stats can be used to manipulate information and skew risk in favor of whatever you want.
For the people on this flight, the risk sure didn't work out did it?
This makes no sense. Sorry, just no better way to put that. Let's pick on one little section:
"Cars do not drop out of the air and collide with the ground. If you compare like circumstances, cars are exponentially safer to be in that air planes. Then you have professional pilots vs non-professional car drivers so again, the comparisons aren't really valid."
What does this have to do with stats? Because cars don't drop out of the air, they are exponentially safer? No, but they do mangle steel at 70MPH.
And I could go on and on. Professional drivers? Regional?
Bottom line: There are different ways to manipulate stats. You can compare raw number of people, you can compare miles flown vs miles driven, or car trips vs airline flights. Any way you do it, auto travel is more dangerous than flying.
You know I'd say the previous grid on fatalities through the years does indeed provides 'fact' as the data indicates. But it would seem that the statistical probability of dying in a plane crash hovers over much more variable elements that that grid showed.
So I'd say if one wishes to reduce one's chances of dying from the air some intervening variables affecting that would be carrier, day of week, weather factors, plane quality, maintenance schedules of planes, the professional ability of air carrier engineers and mechanics and last but not least pilots etc etc etc etc. And flyers always fly with that mix of variables affecting their trip.
Every time one gets in a plane the statistical probabilities vary of coming home alive. Thinking about the so- called 'average' is ok but I'd think if one looks closer those that die obviously don't experience the averages.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about why the plane after reaching cruising height, started a rapid decent. No distress signal was sent out from the plane.
I don't know if you are referring to my post, or another. If me, I clearly said people who actually fear flying have a legit phobia, and it should be acknowledged. I sympathize with you, as I have a couple of intense phobias myself.
What percent of vehicles on the road are carrying the full vehicle passenger capacity? 1%? 2%? I mean... SUV's can hold up to seven people and most do that maybe twice in the 10 years that the owner has it for. What percent of commercial airliners fly with the full vehicle passenger capacity? 98%? I mean, if they don't get a full passenger complement locked in a week before flight time they are cancelling that flight, right? How many single driver fatalities do you have to rack up before you get to the small to mid-size commercial airliner? To me, it doesn't show how much safer flying is, what it does is show America's roadways for the ridiculous circus of the absurd that they are. Yes, America's, per capita the risk of death or dismemberment on European roadways is much lower. I don't think America should always be looking at the Third World for validation that our quality of life isn't all that bad.
An earlier poster asked me "other than MH370, what other aviation mishaps are mysterious"..... all of them? Just because we actually know where the wreckage of all recent aviation disasters is located doesn't mean we actually know what happened. In none of them was any actual information relayed to the ground by the craft in trouble. I get that maybe they had more pressing concerns which is why, at this time I think it should be mandatory for passenger aircraft to have active monitoring of the cockpit environment. Continuously, take-off to landing. The flight data can be written over after a successful landing.
What percent of vehicles on the road are carrying the full vehicle passenger capacity? 1%? 2%? I mean... SUV's can hold up to seven people and most do that maybe twice in the 10 years that the owner has it for. What percent of commercial airliners fly with the full vehicle passenger capacity? 98%? I mean, if they don't get a full passenger complement locked in a week before flight time they are cancelling that flight, right? How many single driver fatalities do you have to rack up before you get to the small to mid-size commercial airliner? To me, it doesn't show how much safer flying is, what it does is show America's roadways for the ridiculous circus of the absurd that they are. Yes, America's, per capita the risk of death or dismemberment on European roadways is much lower. I don't think America should always be looking at the Third World for validation that our quality of life isn't all that bad.
An earlier poster asked me "other than MH370, what other aviation mishaps are mysterious"..... all of them? Just because we actually know where the wreckage of all recent aviation disasters is located doesn't mean we actually know what happened. In none of them was any actual information relayed to the ground by the craft in trouble. I get that maybe they had more pressing concerns which is why, at this time I think it should be mandatory for passenger aircraft to have active monitoring of the cockpit environment. Continuously, take-off to landing. The flight data can be written over after a successful landing.
The likelihood of surviving a car accident keeps going up and with some models is approaching 100%. The chances of surviving a plane crash is very low. Comparing modes of transportation is useless, what is accomplished?
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