Better drivers?

You and Jose seem to be under the misimpression that I'm trying to prove
something here. You attack my statements on that basis, when in fact you
are completely wrong about my intent.

What is your intent? We only "attack" your statements because we
believe they are invalid - that is, an inaccurate representation of
reality. I'm not asking for proof, just pointing out what I believe to
be a significant error in reasonsing.

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

I think it's telling that while there appear to be genuine
statistical differences, even if one assumes that they are due entirely to
individual behavior rather than circumstantial conditions, there's really
not that much difference across the various professions, especially for the
"accident" category. [...]
Even if one assumes that study is completely applicable, if anything what it
suggests is that *most* pilots are probably about the same sort of driver as
*most* other individuals, at least when it comes to having accidents.

I'll buy that. In fact, that's probably the most significant finding
that we, as pilots, should take away from this.

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message
.com...
What is your intent? We only "attack" your statements because we believe
they are invalid - that is, an inaccurate representation of reality. I'm
not asking for proof, just pointing out what I believe to be a significant
error in reasonsing.

Your only proposed counter-argument (so far, anyway) to what I wrote is that
"flying is just more dangerous". While it's true that statistically
speaking, it seems more dangerous than driving, there's no reason to believe
that's inherent in flying. Between the *excellent* safety record of the
airlines, and the fact that the vast majority of accidents with known causes
are due to an error in pilot judgment, not some mysterious "more
dangerous-making" factor, I see no reason to think that flying is inherently
more dangerous than driving.

There are certain aspects of flying that make it less forgiving, but I'm not
talking about injury or fatality rates here. I'm just talking about
accidents. Per accident, injuries and fatalities are higher in aviation, as
would be expected given the generally higher energies involved in accidents.
But other than that, if pilots were generally "better", the overall accident
rate should be significantly lower. I've seen no data to suggest that it
is.

I find *your* suggestion that flying is inherently more dangerous to be a
significant error in reasoning. There's no question that some kinds of
flying is inherently dangerous, but that's not what we're talking about, and
there are kinds of driving that is also inherently dangerous. That
proposition cuts both ways. Flying an airplane is only somewhat more
difficult than driving a car, and this is mitigated somewhat by the fact
that most of the time, one need not be *nearly* as precise in an airplane as
is required in a car, and is mitigated greatly by the significant increase
in training required to obtain flight privileges. And again, this is
reinforced by the fact that pilot skills are rarely the actual cause of an
accident; pilot judgment is most often the cause.

The best you might argue is that skills in driving are not transferable to
skills in flying, and thus there should be no correlation between driving
statistics and flying statistics. But once you do that, you have assumed
the original question to be answered in the negative, which was my point in
the first place.

Pete

Your only proposed counter-argument (so far, anyway) to what I wrote is that
"flying is just more dangerous".

I said that "flying =may= be more dangerous", which if true, negates
your argument (which was "If pilots made for better drivers, then
average pilots should have fewer accidents in airplanes, relatively
speaking, than average drivers do in autos.")

You may well reach the right conclusion, but I don't think that your
(original) reasoning is the correct way to get there. I don't argue
that your conclusion is correct or incorrect, and thus have (and need)
no counter argument.

Between the *excellent* safety record of the
airlines...

Any dangerous activity can be made less dangerous by the sufficient
application of training, care, equipment, and support, which the
airlines are in a position to apply.

...and the fact that the vast majority of accidents with known causes
are due to an error in pilot judgment, not some mysterious "more
dangerous-making" factor...

See above - danger need not be "mysterious", it just requires more and
better judgement.

...I see no reason to think that flying is inherently
more dangerous than driving.

What is "danger" and how would it be measured? It requires more
training to fly safely - is that not a measure of inherent danger? The
question is actually harder to answer than it would appear on the
surface, especially if you consider how danger can be mitigated, and
whether or not that should be included in the "danger rating" of the
activity.

I find *your* suggestion that flying is inherently more dangerous to be a
significant error in reasoning.

You may be right, but you may also be sliding (with me) on the
definition of "inherent danger" (see above). But if that is the case,
then the differences (in "inherent danger") are probably not significant
anyway.

The best you might argue is that skills in driving are not transferable to
skills in flying, and thus there should be no correlation between driving
statistics and flying statistics. But once you do that, you have assumed
the original question to be answered in the negative, which was my point in
the first place.

I agree there, especially as (as you say) accidents (in both cases) are
mainly the result of judgement errors.

Which then raises the question of whether judgement (in driving and
flying) is correlated, or whether pilots are self selected to have
better (or worse) judgement, or whether a pilot's judgement that he has
better driving judgement because he is a pilot is itself poor judgement.

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Years ago, I found myself flying with a captain who lived within 5 miles of
me, on Long Island. We decided to carpool for that month ( to LGA). He was
one of the best B727 captains I flew with. But his driving was atrocious. He
would run red lights ( "It's 4:30 in the morning" he hollered at me, when I
protested) . When it was my turn to drive, he wanted to talk into running a
red light by making a "right on red", and then making a "U"-turn on the side
street, followed by another "right on red".
Fortunately for me, he had enough senority to upgrade and I never flew with
him again.

"cpw" wrote in message
oups.com...
I apologize if this topic has been beaten to death in the past. I am
wondering if there are any statistics on whether pilots are safer
(automobile) drivers than the general public. It has seemed to me that
my pilot training has improved my driving skills in several ways:
situational awareness, planning ahead, general safe driving practices,
etc. Anybody have any opinions (HAH!) in the group?

Chris W writes:

Given that I've seen no evidence that pilots on the whole are better at
avoiding crashes in airplanes than they otherwise would statistically be
expected to be, I see no reason to think they would be better drivers. That
is, if they can't even be better-than-average in flying than they'd be
expected to be, why would one expect them to be better-than-average in
anything else?

How on earth could the average person preform better than average? By
definition that is impossible.

I recall (but not so well that I can readily provide a reference) that
this is fairly common. I suppose it depends on your definition of
"average person."

For an extreme example, let's say that there are 100 GA pilots and only
one GA crash in a year. The average is .01 crashes/pilot, right? And
99% of the pilots have done better than that by not crashing, right?

Even if you want to use some definition of "average person" that results
in a partial crash per year, almost all of your pilots have done
"better-than-average" (as stated in the part you quoted).

(Yes, this is getting off of the flying/driving thread a bit.)

--kyler

Even if you want to use some definition of "average person" that results
in a partial crash per year, almost all of your pilots have done
"better-than-average" (as stated in the part you quoted).

Almost all of your pilots are not average pilots. The issue wasn't
"almost all" but "average".

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"cpw" wrote in message

I am wondering ...
snip
It has seemed to me that...
snip

most of the later responses in this thread have forgotten that the original
poster had said these two things.

he did NOT say

"it seems to be..."

or

"I find..."

he was not trying to state facts, he was looking to see if that others
noticed the same thing.

while I am not a pilot, I try to act as PIC while driving. got a warning for
excessive speed today. no speed limits in the air shrugs

Tater Schuld wrote:

while I am not a pilot, I try to act as PIC while driving.

Ditto here. I'm very regimented in my approach to car driving and
haven't thus come even remotely near a traffic violation of any kind. I
use my C240's Cruise Control all the time to help me not exceed
specified speed limits g

Ramapriya

"Tater Schuld" wrote:
while I am not a pilot, I try to act as PIC while driving. got a
warning for excessive speed today. no speed limits in the air shrugs

Actually there are speed limits for aircraft (though just high enough that
many GA aircraft can only dream of flying that fast). See FAR 91.117.