One, I lost friends on 9/11 so your point is quite moot.
Two, I never fly commercial airliners anymore. Stale nuts, horrific scheduling, and seats made for midgets.
I prefer the train....even if Amtrak’s government run, hehehe.
http://www.gonzalez.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54&Itemid=37
Despite this positive sign, however, a number of disturbing statistics in the same report reveal that we have a long way to go in preventing death and injury on the rails. While accidents, as the FRA defines them, have declined for two years in a row, they are the cause of only a tiny fraction of total train-related fatalities. Last year a total of 12,833 train-related accidents or incidents are reported to have occurred in the United States. 2,834 of these were actual train accidents, primarily involving train collisions or train derailments. This is the category of train wrecks traditionally used by the FRA in press releases claiming progress on rail safety. The number in 2005 was 3,225, demonstrating a decline of 391 "accidents" from 2005 to 2006. Another 2,897 wrecks involved highway-rail collisions. Highway-rail accidents are considered separately from train accidents and are statistically far more deadly. While 6 people were killed in train accidents in 2006, 362 people were killed in highway-rail accidents. As the FRA admits, fatalities in the highway-rail accident category actually increased 1.4% from 2005 to 2006. Finally, an additional 7,102 "other incidents" occurred in 2006. The vast majority of fatalities in 2006 resulted from highway-rail collisions, or from other incidents, often involving trespassers on the rails. To reiterate, the number of fatalities due to train accidents, that is, involving individuals riding trains and killed as a result of impact in a crash, was just 6 last year, down from 33 the previous year. Sadly, the combined number of fatal train accidents, highway-rail accidents, and other train-related incidents increased from 808 in 2005 to 850 in 2006, resulting in a total of 915 deaths, up from 888 in 2005.
Source:
http://www.mattbarr.com/archives/2006/09/your_chance_of.html
Your chance of dying in a terrorist attack According to one estimate, your chance as an American of dying by accidental drowning is 66 times greater than your chance of dying in a terrorist attack. (Or it might be seven times greater; see the post.) As many Americans have been killed by lightning, accident-causing deer and allergic reactions to peanuts as terrorism, since they started keeping track, they say. You're twice as likely to die crushed under a vending machine as you are to die in a terrorist attack, according to this source. You are 225,409 times more likely to die in an auto accident, another source says. More people accidentally shoot themselves to death than die in terror attacks, it says here.
I am sorry about your friend.
However, if we stop living our way the terrorist win.