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If you want to be pedantic, you're conflating 'having a safe record' with 'being safe.' It's just an indicator.

Not really. All safe planes have a safe record and a safe record implies some amount of inherent safety. Since safety is really hard to quantify and compare and in some ways is qualitative, the safety record is a justifiable and defendable proxy for comparing safety.

We’re on the same page.

You’re acknowledging that the safety record is just a proxy for safety. That’s what I’m saying too.

I would argue that using the number of incidents as a proxy for safety ignores the trend.

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