Hacker News Reader

Comment by preommr | Hacker News Reader

I disliked the whole article, but as a quick tangent, the following:

> . People are often far more anxious about flying than driving, even though commercial airline crashes are incredibly rare.

...surely can be explained, that if adjusted for non-impaired people and considering the survival rate for when an accident happens, the danger is much lower for cars.

The way the article phrases it, makes it sound like the fear is completely baseless.

View on HN

>...surely can be explained, that if adjusted for non-impaired people and considering the survival rate for when an accident happens, the danger is much lower for cars

No. This is false equivalence. You are far more likely to die in a car than you are in an airplane, full stop.

This is an overgeneralization. You are far more likely to die in a C172 airplane than you are in a modern car.

Ok, sure, we can go that route and cherry pick examples that are not representative of the trends of the vast majority of flying. I'll even grant that I probably invited it by saying "full stop" on my sentence. Nevertheless, as most of us will never be in a C172, flying in a plane is far safer than being in a car.

The least you can do here is be honest about the conversation that is being had. It would be appreciated.

Agreed, flying in a plane is far safer, it was the full stop thing :)

I also would recommend flying in a small plane at least once, the small additional risk is worth the experience.

First, one doesn't need to be impaired to die from a drunk driver. Only ~60% of the people who die in DUI accidents are the impaired driver. You can do everything right, but you're constantly surrounded by people making mistakes. You are not alone on the road. And even then, nearly 70% of traffic fatalities did not involve any impairment!

You are still far more likely to die riding in any normal passenger car in the US on public roadways than you are by taking any commercial air traffic, even if you limit it to instances where the driver of the vehicle the deceased was in was not impaired. And that's deaths, ignoring how many people are severely injured. Throw that into the mix and its absurd how much safer airline travel is.

Next: take a look at death and injury comparisons of highways to light rail and other public transit.

(warning: pdf) https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/public/publication/8135...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com