How safe is it, really?

"Back_To_Flying" wrote:

He is in more danger of dying in a car crash on the way to the airport.
Driving is still the most dangerous activity we humans do.

Utter BS.

Ok, unlike you I have done some research on this then .

Evidently you haven't, or you'd know that the fatal accident rate of private
flying is 700% higher than that of driving in the U. S.

Driving is the
leading cause of death for American drivers between 15 - 20 years of age.
Here is my source http://www.canadiandriver.com/news/041018-3.htm

Yes. So? Are you saying kids fly as much as they drive?

I have also seen a few more reports concluding the same. So one could
conclude that driving is still much more dangerous than flying regardless
of
age group. Do you have proof of the opposite? Then show me your source.

You said: "He is in more danger of dying in a car crash on the way to the
airport.", indicating that you believe there is greater risk in one driving
trip than in one flying trip. Then you presented statistics about death
rates from a population that contains almost no pilots. In other words,
you've ignored the relative exposure of pilots vs. drivers. That old
chestnut you quoted about the drive to the airport may be true for traveling
by scheduled airlines, but it is not even close to true about private
flying.

As for my source, I get the Nall Report from the ASF every year:
http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/02nall.pdf -- you can get the GA fatal
accidents/hour from it and compare that to the rate for driving.

Just for fun, ask yourself these three questions: How many celebrities do
you know of that have died in GA accidents? How many in car crashes? How
much time do celebrities spend traveling in GA aircraft vs traveling in
cars?

As Richard Collins noted in a recent article in Flying Magazine, anyone who
has been heavily involved in aviation for decades will know more people that
have died in plane crashes than have died in car crashes, even though most
people they know don't fly.

--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM