Safety: Planes vs Bikes

On page 12 of 72 of the below listed Recent Trends in Fatal Motorcycle
Crashes -

"In 2004, motorcycles made up nearly 2.4 percent of all registered vehicles
in the United States and accounted for only 0.3 percent of all vehicle miles
traveled. In comparison, motorcycle riders accounted for 5.3 percent of
total traffic fatalities in 1995 and have increased to 9.4 percent of the
total traffic fatalities in 2004. Per 100,000 registered vehicles, the
fatality rate for motorcycle riders (69.33) in 2004 was 4.6 times the
fatality rate for passenger car occupants (15.05). Per vehicle mile traveled
in 2004, motorcycle riders (39.89) were about 34 times more likely than
passenger car occupants (1.18) to die in a motor vehicle traffic crash."

So, motorcycle riders are 34 times more likely to die per mile then in a
car. I believe the analysis on GA to cars is about 6 to 8 times more
likely. Looks like there is your answer.

Also, have you noticed how the general public freaks out over GA, however
they don't seem even seem to worry to much if at all when they go bicycle
riding or boating, which combined has about 3 times the fatalities as GA
does.

Alan.



From Recent Trends in Fatal Motorcycle Crashes:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd...006/810606.pdf

There were 10 billion vehicle miles traveled on motorcycles in the US
(Table 5). There were 4,000 fatalities (page 10). Therefore there is
an average of one fatality per 2,500,000 miles driven on a motorcycle.

BTW, motorcycles registered in the US has gone from 3.6 million in 1990
to 6.4 million in 2003.

From the Nall Report at http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/05nall.pdf
There was 1.2 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours. (page 5)

Therefore if you assume the average motorcycle travels an average of 30
mph, the accident rates are equal. (2,500,000/(100,000/1.2))