[BlueHorseShoe]

I know the line about air travel being safer than your car but at least in my car I have a chance of survival.

Has anyone ever done the stats on the number of people on the road in any given day vs. in the air? I wonder how it is really determined that air travel is safer.

[chimera]

I wonder how it is really determined that air travel is safer.

I think it is the product of the number of passengers and the number of miles travelled divided by fatalities for a given time period. For air travel, the number of passengers is smaller than automobile travel, but the miles are more, and vice-versa. Check the average fatalities per year for commercial aviation vs. automobile travel. Relatively few, on the order of perhaps hundreds, against tens of thousands for auto travel.

But your point about survival per accident is a good one. People often survive auto crashes, but if a large jet goes down, 100% fatalities is more the norm.

[GEC]

Whether it's in passenger-miles or passenger-miles per day, it's always safer to be on a plane than in a car.

Many people have already died since Sept. 11th because they took a car instead of flying.