Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

My life insurance policy specifically denies a claim if I'm flying general aviation (private plane). It is that much more dangerous than commercial (on par with driving in a car).

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/opinion/The-Dangers-of-Pr...

"The National Transportation Safety Board found that in 2011, 94 percent of fatal aviation accidents occurred in what’s called general aviation. That category includes private small planes flown by amateurs as well as professionally piloted corporate flights in high-powered aircraft, such as the Gulfstream IV jet that crashed in May in Bedford, Mass., killing all seven people on board. By contrast, commercial aviation had no fatal accidents that year. Statistics from the N.T.S.B. show that general aviation aircraft average nearly seven accidents per 100,000 flight hours, compared with an average of 0.16 accidents per 100,000 hours for commercial airlines."

Emphasis mine.

View on HN

on par with driving in a car

...which people in general seem to have no particular fear of.

Which is strange, considering 34k people in the US alone die each year in car accidents. Driving is a high risk activity.

From the user to whom you're replying:

> [...] show that general aviation aircraft average nearly seven accidents per 100,000 flight hours, compared with an average of 0.16 accidents per 100,000 hours for commercial airlines.

So the accident rate for GA is over 40 times higher than commercial.

On top of that, around three quarters of these fatal accidents are the result of what could be broadly categorized as pilot error... Which is why the FAA has such a stick up its butt about the licensing status of the TapJets pilots.

Majority of car accidents are minor. You might end with some bruises or some damage to the car, but nothing too bad

Plane accidents are much more likely to result in fatalities

[Citation-needed].

Because people in general are idiots.

Or, to express it more charitably - we're all used to it. Car-related fatalities no longer register as unusual. You don't hear much about them in the news. They're treated as "something that unavoidably happens to people". Like cancer or heart attack, and unlike murder, which is unusual. I'm willing to bet that you're friends or acquaintances with people who crashed their cars (with or without health consequences), and you're at most two hops in your social graph from people who died in a car accident.

Your insurance company sounds like a bag of dicks. Do they also deny a claim if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet, which is legal? What about skydiving, or skiing a black diamond course, or attempting Longs Peak in the winter without three layers on?

Sometimes I forget the USA centric nature of forum until I read riding without helmet is legal... :0

I've see motorcycles without helmet last time I was down south in the fall and it scares the absolute beejesus bonkers out of me :/

(I've been riding for a decade, do occasional dirt trails, and have doing motorsport rallying a while back, but never enough of a daredevil to mount a bike without helmet and armour)

Riding without a helmet is not universally legal in the US.

In the past there was pressure from the federal government on state governments to enact more universal laws about wearing helmets. Now many states only require that young riders wear helmets and a handful don't have any rule. Here is an overview with a map, too: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/laws/helmetuse/mapmotorcycle...

Thanks! Appreciate the further info! :>

> Sometimes I forget the USA centric nature of forum until I read riding without helmet is legal... :0

It varies by state; this is one of those occasions where the federal government leaves it up to each state to mandate as they please. You might be surprised to learn that Georgia, a deeply Republican (i.e. anti-regulation) state, has strict requirements for motorcycle safety including mandatory helmets for any vehicle classed as a motorcycle.

Republican has come to mean more "anti-authority" with respect to regulations, and not even necessarily less, but just less ones which hurt private profits. It does not really any longer mean 'against ones which hurt individual liberties.'

On the other hand, if one is in need of an organ donation, moving to one of those states might be a good idea

Usually when you apply, they ask if you do or plan to do any of these things. If so, they may decline to offer a policy, or offer one with a rider that excludes those activities. I’m a low-time pilot and my life insurance won’t cover me for plane crashes either.

If you’re interested, AOPA has partnered with providers who will extend life insurance with no GA exclusions. Check out their website for more info.

Yeah, I've looked at AOPA and others but I'm a bit too low-time to get favorable rates, and now I'm a lapsed pilot who hasn't flown in a few years, so it's on the backburner for now. Thanks though!

I don't know about life insurance, but I know every travel insurance policy I've ever taken out specifically excludes skydiving and skiing unless you pay extra for a special policy.

Also, motorcycles without helmets!?!?!?!?!?!?!? America, I presume?

Many people ride motorcycles for pleasure in America. Motorcycles are a dangerous mode of transportation (more than cars, buses, etc.), even if you wear a helmet. If you are going for maximum pleasure/risk then, if the pleasure is much higher without a helmet, it is rational to not wear one, if you are riding for pleasure.

Commuting on a motorcycle, you should wear a helmet. Pleasure ride on the weekends, maybe not. Let the person make the decision. Seems good to me. America.

Absolutely insane, it is an irrational risk NOT to wear a helmet. Here are some cdc facts:

* Helmets saved an estimated 1,772 lives in 2015.

* If all motorcyclists would have worn helmets in 2015, 740 more could have been saved.

* Helmets reduce the risk of death by 37%.

* Helmets reduce the risk of head injury by 69%

https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/mc/index.html

Wear your helmet. Do it for yourself and your family, and never tell anyone NOT to wear a helmet. Seriously!

It is insane to ride a motorcycle. Once you decide that you want to risk riding a motorcycle for pleasure, maybe the increased pleasure of not wearing a helmet is worth it. Why would you ride a motorcycle at all for pleasure, if your philosophy of life is safety first?

Because safety and pleasure are not mutually exclusive. If your question was valid, skydivers wouldn't use parachutes and skiers would wear shorts and tank tops.

Just because one wants to enjoy a risky activity doesn't mean one has no common sense or self-preservation instinct.

Free climbers, astronauts and political dissidents must also be insane, and not understand this, either? Or their utility function is simply maximized at a place where yours is not.

I wouldn't smoke, ride without a helmet, etc, but who am I to say you are wrong for doing so? There are many people who would not sign up for a trip to Mars, but I would. Who are they to tell me I am wrong for a wanting this?

> "Free climbers, astronauts and political dissidents must also be insane"

Wait, when did I accuse anyone of insanity?

> "I wouldn't smoke, ride without a helmet, etc, but who am I to say you are wrong for doing so?"

I never said anyone was wrong for anything. I think you meant to reply to person I replied to above; you and I seem to agree more or less.

It's just insane to ride a motorcycle in the more populated areas of the US - with or without a helmet. A friend of mine works in a skilled nursing facility. Most of the younger males who end up there are because motorcycles. While wearing helmets saved their lives, many of them will be disabled in some way the rest of their lives.

I’ve been to a couple of motorcycle accidents (I worked as an ambulance driver), and I was surprised how little they got hurt. Most people here only drive with full protective gear, and it helps a lot.

Kids driving on mopeds, on the other hand, is a different story. Even though they only drive at low speeds, they get hurt really badly even in minor accidents because they don’t wear protective clothing.

Yes, motorcycling is dangerous, but your clothes make a huge difference.

Mopeds with people riding with flip flops or sandals. Shutter.

I agree. I have been in a pretty serious motorcycle "accident". Broke my wrist and banged up my ankle pretty bad. Full helmet (with a big scrape on it where I hit the ground), leather jacket (again, nice scrape on the back), jeans, and high boots. Glad I was wearing them. But I have ridden without a helmet (legal in NM at the time) a few times when the weather was right and I'm on a shortish, easy joy ride. Worth the risk for me in those few instances. It is also great to be able to give someone else a short ride on a whim and let them wear your helmet, while you go without. Not a big plus for me to live in a place where everything that the majority thinks is imprudent is illegal.

Are helmets a legal requirement in your country (Australia, I see)?

As a former and future rider, I always wear a full helmet, but people have the legal right to ride without one.

If we were going for maximum safety for transportation, uncaged motor transport would be prohibited.

Yes.

It's also a legal requirement to wear helmets when riding a pushbike too, which is something far more controversial as there's research to suggest that the effect those laws have on reducing cycling participation has a more negative impact on visibility and safety of cyclists. But I don't think I've ever heard someone say that mandatory motorbike helmet laws are a bad thing.

The problem with your presumption that authority is good, is that it assumes the authority is somehow better at making decisions for an individual than the individual is.

There is research which shows that the trend towards higher vehicular weight is caused by drivers desire to be, or at least feel, safer. Yet this makes less economically fortunate drivers less safe, has adverse impact on the environment, and doesn't improve human welfare.

Why do we regulate helmets and not vehicular weight? It might have less to do with improving welfare and more to do with individual politics. I fear people have more of a tendency to want to be an authority over personal liberties than of unwarranted aggressions. For example, how long have people protested gay relationships, but allowed sexual harassment to persist?

Having lived in both countries, Australia doesn't seem to have the inflating vehicle size problem to the same degree. Plus the attitude to welfare is very different in general. I don't think you can just transplant laws and arguments from one to the other and expect them to make sense.

Insurance is a for-profit business. It's normal for them to exclude high-risk activities from being covered by a policy that's priced for low-risk life. You can get a special GA-covering policy if you pay extra, there or elsewhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com