"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...
There are two crew members on a jetliner. At least the hypothetical one I
was
using. One jet crashes, killing all aboard (300 pax, 2 crew).

I see...I misread your post, and thought you had both airplanes crashing,
not just one. Not getting enough sleep these days I guess.


If these statistics hold up for the next year (two flights, two motorcycle
rides), and I decide to fly rather than take the motorcycle, how much more
likely am I to die? Not 302 times more likely.

No. But then, that's not the calculation you'd use for making that
comparison. You seem to intentionally be mixing your units in order to
prove some point. What point you're trying to make is lost on me, but you
need to stop mixing your units. You have to use the units that address the
comparison you want to make.

If you want to compare overall transportation safety, then a measure that
accounts for the number of passengers is useful. If you want to compare
individual passenger risk, then a per-trip analysis would be more useful.

As an example of someone that might care about the former more than the
latter, consider an insurance underwriter writing policies that cover
passenger losses.

I never said anything about making relative comparisons.

That's what the thread's about.

By "relative comparison", I mean "a quantified ratio of risk". The thread
started out asking simply whether one activity was more risky than another.
The question of HOW MUCH riskier one is than the other wasn't asked, nor
should anything I wrote be construed as addressing that question.

Pete