Says who???
I didn't want to hijack the thread (or bore everybody) by including the tables.....
But....-you- can view the D.O.T. stats (motor vehicle) (here)
And ......the NTSB data (aviation) (here)
The road/air ratio during a 24-hour period?!?!?!?
C'mon....I've never even seen that figure, have you???
No. But without that data, the data you posted can be misleading.
The result you are hoping to demonstrate...that air travel in a private plane is safer than travel in a passenger car...is the result of mathematical calculations. Only ONE of the variables required to compute that is the number of accidents per year involving each form of travel. Not the ONLY one. That is all I was trying to demonstrate.
So don't get your knickers in a twist. I didn't say you were wrong. Only that additional data is required to extrapolate that air travel in a private plane is safer than travel in a passenger car.
More detail from the data - still apples to oranges, but before we were comparing grapes to grapefruit, so it's a little better:
Fatal accidents per 100,000 fight hours = 1.31 (for commercial carriers it was .016)
Fatalities per 100 Million vehicle miles traveled = 1.47
THere is still not quite enough data to be sure, but it looks like the safety rankings are as follows:
Commercial airliner
Driving
General aviation
A couple more notes:
1. The aviation stats are for fatal accidents per 100,000 hours, not fatalities per 100,000 hours.
2. The number 321 you cited was for fatal accidents, not fatalities. The 321 accidents resulted in 557 fatalities (+ 5 more on the ground). The commercial carriers rate I cited includes 3 accidents with 20 + 2 fatalities.
3. What we really need is fatalities per passenger mile for both air and car (including pilot/driver as "passengers.")
4. The aviation data tends to vary wildly from year to year, from what I remember from other sources (especially the fatalities number). In 2005, there were 22 deaths related to 10 CFR 121 air travel (which I assume is the major airlines from the other numbers. One major accident can obliterate that number.