On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 20:02:31 -0600, timeOday
wrote:

Don Tuite wrote:


Per mile, per hour, per year?

According to the (very informative) links you posted, I think the
motorcycle will lose whether you measure per mile or per hour.

Private aviation has 1.2 deaths per 100,000 flight hours
Motorcycles have 40 deaths per 100,000,000 vehicle miles traveled.

In order for the per-hour death rate of motorcyclists to be lower than
the planes, the average motorcycle speed would have to be under 30 mph.

1.2/1e5 = 40/(1e8/X)
X = 30

Assuming the average motorcycle speed is over 30 mph, the motorcycle is
more dangerous per hour. And since the average plane speed is easily
over 30 mph, the plane is far safer than the motorcycle if you measure
by mile.

Then there's personal variation, as you say. This is just a hunch, but
I would think there's much more variation among motorcyclists than
pilots, simply because there's so much more regulation of pilots.

And recurring training. And then factor out the contributions from
the drunks and squids from the m'cycle population. (They exist in
aviation, but I think there tend to be fewer of them.)

I'm not real happy with the NHTSA stats, anyway, because they seem to
imply things that are not supported. (Imply, by the presence of
certain graphs,even if the implications are not explicitly stated in
the text.) For example, 66% of the fatals in states with no helmet
laws weren't wearing a helmet.; 15% of the fatals from states that had
mandatory helmet laws died bareheaded. The presence of those stats
suggests that helmets have something to do with surviving crashes,
which is probably true. But all the stats can really demonstrate is
that when there are no helmet laws fewer people wear helmets.

Don