Why do people say airplane travel is safer than cars?

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TravelGuy

Naturegirl...

Great question...with a very simple answer. First, imagine, right now, that there are literally thousands of commercial air flights in the air. There were thousands of others in the air this morning and later this afternoon AND tonight there will be thousands and thousands more. Ok...got it? Pretty scary, huh? Now go to sleep tonight and when you wake up, start over...same scenario. But, remember that in Europe and Asia while we were sleeping thousands and thousands of flights were flying there as well.

My point is this...tens of thousands of commercial flights take off EVERY DAY! And they almost all land safely. In a typical month...on the planet...there may be two or three crashes of jets that hold 20 passengers or more.

Now remember that in the United States...EVERY YEAR...there are over 50,000 deaths in auto accidents. That doesn't count the many times more that are injured. Let's see...50,000/52 weeks...that's about 1000 deaths a week...OR...about 150 deaths EVERY DAY! Would you be concerned if, every single day in the United States a commercial airliner with 150 people onboard crashed and everyone was killed? I know I would be a little nervous.

I've traveled to Asia twice, South America three times and Europe three times. I'll be back to Europe in November and then again in December.

Air travel is, BY FAR, the safest way to travel. Just sit back and relax. You're in good hands with professional pilots that have flown thousands of flights. You're in a jet that has been designed and tested to handle pretty much anything that comes its way.

When you're in a car, there are idiots everywhere, driving with family problems, drinking, too old, too young, too fast, too slow...the roads are slick, it's raining, people talking on cell phones. I travel for a living and hate getting on the road sometimes. I see so many stupid things and have had so many close calls.

On planes, I've traveled to about 30 countries and have been on over 150 flights with about 500,000 miles flown.

Bottom line naturegirl...you're safe on airplanes. Much safer today than ever before. Remember when you wake up tomorrow...were there any crashes? Check the news. Then remember that the cycle of flights continues with everyone arriving safely pretty much everyday. Go see the world...

"Life is a book...without travel...you read only a page..."

Take care...

pradeep_tp77

I haven't travelled much on air plane, but I can still say that it is much safer than any other travel, if not the safest. Once airborne, the air plane doesn't have to stop anywhere or worry about changing tracks as in the case of trains. There are less things to worry about in air plane travel than car or train.

todd

in the last 4 years 80 people have been killed in aviation accidents in America. Over 250,000 have been killed in car accidents....

ANY QUESTIONS??

Sharon

Because if you were in a car crash, you are likely to end up in a coma for the rest of your life, but if you get into an airplane crash you will be dead and will not feel any pain.

When traveling by car, it's too frustrating, I like plane, beside it takes me faster so that I can spend more time with my hubby. Doesn't that sound good?

Green dot

Because it is inspected and checked many times and before each flight .

EMAILSKIP

Because stistically it is safer--much safer. A whole lot more people are killed every year on the highways than in the skyways. A plane accident may kill several hundred people but they don't happen every day. Many people are killed in car accidents everyday in the US. I think it's about 40,000 people in the US are killed in Car accidents each year. No where near that many people are killed in all the airplane disasters in the world in a year.

Penguin Gal

You have a 1 in 100,000 chance in being killed in an airplane accident

You have a 1 in 250 chance in being killed in a car accident

usman

first of all there is less traffic in air then cars..
then u understand that how many plan crashes occurre in a day and how many auto accidents occure in a sigle day.
plus airplanes are muct taken care than the autos

MUHABUHA MAN

preety soon terrerists r gana find out how to make trere hair into a bomb and were all gana have to fly bald

YouDontKnowMe

deaths per year. about 1 plane goes down every 12 months. theyre are thousands of car deaths a month.

fr_chuck

more people die each year in car wrecks than in airline travel.

Your chances ( percentages) of getting hurt in a plane is alot less than any other form of travel. In the US since 9/11 to this last week there was no injury or death from a commercial air line crash. And there is seldom any airline crashes in the US ever due to our high safty standards.

dukalink6000

They look at total amount of people and total miles travelled.

True, when an airplane goes down, the loss of life is high (like those folks in KY), but there are times when the airlines go years without an accident.

Auto travel can never say that.

double_nubbins

It's because the percentage chance of dying each time you get in a car is much higher than the percentage chance you have of dying each time you get into an airplane.

Darby

Everyone has different views. If I have to travel a long distance, I ain't drivin no mo.

pinoyscrewer

They rank them on deaths per year

J D

It's purely statistics. Yes, that data is included. There are far few people killed in car crashes than there are in plane crashes. The odds of walking away from the plane crash are far less though. When you look at the amount of people killed each year by auto crashes it is staggering. IT equates to one person every 4 minutes or so. Where as the same data with plane crashes has days. I don't know the exact data

himanshu k

because in a car chances of collision are higher

also you have to trust the other person is also sane

Embliri Trex

Tha fact that there are more auto accident than air accident is correct, but also the number of auto victims is MUCH greater than the number of airplane crash deaths. If you sum all the daily victims for auto accident in the world you got an enormous quantity.
Airplane crashes seem more dangerous because they kill 100-200 or more people in one time, and with bigger effects.

btw I travel always with my car :)

tinkerbell

there are more car crashes in a year then plane crashes. just when a plane crashes it can kill loads of people at once so it makes the news where not every car crash makes the news.

They call me ... Trixie.

Your chances of dying in an auto accident are much greater than your chances of dying in a plane crash. I'm with you though - I'd rather get into a car accident than go down in a plane. At least in the car I'm kind of in control of my own destiny: in a plane, you're relying on someone else's skills to get you there in one piece. And the thought of falling through the sky for even 10 seconds, knowing you're going to hit the ground......too scary to think about for long :) There used to be a website called AmIGoingDown.com. You entered in your flight information - route, size of plane, carrier, etc and it gave you the odds on your plane crashing. I never saw anything lower than 1 in 1 million something. They removed the website after 9/11, but it did always make me feel better before I flew.

sljkhtr vliqweyrt

because it is.. there are like 25 people per million miles die in cars, but only 2 per million miles die in planes.

pimpa1949

Probably it is less traffic in the air compared to the roads. The percentage of"lost of life" is less than the accident on the roads around years as well. How many car's accidents a day around the world? How many plane's accidents a day around the world?

as400_guru

The rates are calculated based on deaths per miles traveled.

(Travlers * miles) / total deaths = deaths per mile traveled.

words_smith_4u

The criteria used is safer "for the miles travelled". That means, if you take a plane trip of 3,000 miles, you are less likely than if you DRIVE 3,000 miles. True that airplane accidents are usually tremendous fireballs and death and destruction whereas a car accident can be a 'fender bender'.

Think of it this way... a plane can carry 300 people. Times a 3,000 mile trip = 900,000 passenger miles. Now, how many cars would you have to have trips in to equal a single plane ride.

mellieee

more people die in car crashes than they would on a plane. Many factors causes deaths in driving. Drunk drivers, and such. So people in the car have no control. No pilot is going to hit one another, so the only thing that could affect it is highjackers or some once in a billion problem. So this means that there are less things that can cause deaths to people on a plane than a car. A car has dozens of reasons why you would die. The plane there's probably like 1 - falling to your death.

e_deckwa

I think your way of thinking is logical but maybe a little more thought is in order. There are a few things about flying that are a definate. One is that if the plane is airborne and has to land because of failure you more than likely will not survive. However lets look at the causes of deaths in automobiles. When your driving an automobile you have hundreds even thousands of pounds of steel and the like heading right for you. Even though you have control of your vehicle this doesn't mean that you wont have a collision. Its not how good you drive that keeps you out of an accident. Its how good other people drive. One in three accidents involving cars is a fatality and thirty percent of accidents are people whose driving was impaired because of alcohol or drugs. Now with cellphones, smoking, eating, kids, road rage, Economy, stupid people, there are a number of things that can make driving a high risk. If your in a plane you definately have less traffic in the air. Not that there has never been a collision of planes but lets face it, it doesnt happen often. Let me see if i can make an analogy to better understand. Two men leave San Francisco one by car and one by plane. the one on the plane pays 298 dollars to travel to New york with one two hour layover in Denver making his flight overall about nine and a half hours. Where as the one who is driving has to stop and fill up every two hours and it takes him four and a half days to make the trip. Do you think the man in the car had more opportunities to die than the one in the plane? I do. Hope i could help sorry it was so long.

Stuart

100 cars are driven by 100 drivers who have varying levels of skill. Some speed, some crawl, some stop or swerve suddenly, etc.

On the other hand, those same 100 people seated on an airplane are driven by a professional driver - one who has a huge stake, both personally and professionally, in operating the plane safely and sanely.

The rare instance when the plane has a mechanical failure, meets with dramatic weather or other event that leads to an accident doesn't even come close to the thousands and thousands of times each day that a car/driver combination meets disaster.

You can cite the inequities: there are more cars in a small city than there are airplanes in the world, but, statistically, air travel is decidedly safer than car travel. Decidedly.

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