"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
Depends how you are measuring "safety", what you are comparing it to, and
to
what end.

If there's only two airliner flights in a year, each carrying 300
passengers,
one crashes, and they all die.... and there's only two motorcycle trips in
that
same year, and one crashes, killing the rider, is the plane really 302
times
more dangerous than the motorcycle?

I never said anything about making relative comparisons. I'm just pointing
out that you can't say it's "not fair" to compare the two. Depending on
what information you're interested in, it might be completely fair.

As for your sample comparison, if you're looking for passenger-flight safety
numbers then yes, the airliner is 600 times "more dangerous" than the
motorcycle when measured in fatalities per trip (I don't know where you came
up with 302, since you failed to specify your units). Whether that's an
interesting comparison to someone is up to them to decide.

Are you 302 times more likely to die in a plane crash than by riding a
motorcycle?

Measured how? You haven't specified the units you're using, but assuming
you did the math right, then statistically speaking (using your obviously
statistically insignificant sample) the answer would be "yes". In your
example, the statistical difference would be explained as much by the
greater likelihood of actually riding in an airplane versus in a motorcycle,
and the units change once you make the assumption that the passenger is on
each, but with the parameters you've specified so far, airliners are
statistically more likely to kill a given person.

Pete