picture from Reuters
Only rail travel is safer that air travel
Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, June 2, 2009
We fear air travel and are horrified and fascinated by air plane disasters. The fear is probably primal since it doesn’t have any basis in fact.
Someone once explained it as loss of control. Control is an illusion: if a car coming towards you at 50 mph crosses into your lane, what control does anyone have?
Another explanation is the imagined horror of falling from the sky. Which seems harder? In the United States 128 people a year free fall from the sky for 5 minutes and then die suddenly. More than 500,000 Americans suffer death by cancer which usually has considerable lingering pain along with mental anguish.
Yet, we fear dying in an airplane.
During 1996 to 1998, I traveled by air more than 30 weeks of the year. It became routine: leave home on Monday at 6 AM, return home Friday night at 10 PM.
On a pleasant flight from Chicago to Toronto in 1998, a VP from 3M confided he was retiring to avoid the weekly flights across the globe for his company. “You only have so many safe miles in a plane,” he said. “My miles are up and I’m quitting before the numbers get me.”
Irrational or not, I shared his fear. I have also learned to enjoy the rush from sudden turbulence. A person would pay good money to get the same thrill at Six Flags.
By the numbers, US train travel is safer with an average 5 deaths per year and .88 deaths per billion passenger miles. US air travel is almost as safe with 128 deaths per year and .87 deaths per billion passenger miles.
Auto travel is the most dangerous mode of transportation with 42,000 deaths per year and 11.7 deaths per billion passenger miles. We are 13 times more likely to be killed driving our cars. Why do we feel so safe in them?
Next time you go down the road for smokes and milk, watch out. You are 6 times more likely to be killed driving on rural or non-Interstate routes than on the big highways. (Source: Train vs Plane vs Car )
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence – NJN Network Inc.copyright.
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