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zipiridu | 4 years ago

IIRC takeoff and landing are the most dangerous parts, so I'd be more interested fatalities per trip. An intercontinental plane ride would cover more miles than I drive in a year which makes the per mile stat meaningless to me. I think it would still be in the plane's favor but probably not as significantly. And in that case if you're a safe driver (healthy adult, doesn't drink or do drugs, doesn't speed, etc) it might skew in favor of driving since I'm sure some groups are much higher risk.

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mertd|4 years ago

If you are a terrible driver, you can certainly make your individual odds of accident a lot worse than the average case, but I'm not sure being a good driver improves your odds by that much. A lot of the risks are totally out of the driver's control (e.g., other road users, equipment, weather etc..).

throwaway0a5e|4 years ago

Choice of weather conditions is within your control, just don't drive in terrible weather.

Being a good driver does a ton to insulate you from the shenanigans of

Equipment failure is basically a rounding errors but also within the driver's control since "flat tire at speed" is probably lion's share of crashes in that category.

pfranz|4 years ago

I remember hearing with the rise of regional airlines starting in the 90s the number of flight cycles (takeoffs/landings) went way up for some types of planes...and I assume for the "average flight." An increase in the number of short trips would make lowing the per-mile rating more impressive.

throwaway0a5e|4 years ago

The stat is doubly misleading because it is skewed by the proliferation of long direct flights as turbofan widebody jets proliferated and air travel became more affordable which both happened in the same time period as that chart.

I don't think flying is particularly dangerous but the person you're replying to is being highly naive or misleading by taking that chart at face value.