Safety: Planes vs Bikes

I'd put my kinds in an airplane with a safe pilot long before I'd put
them on the back of a motorcycle with a crazy rider. It all depends on
the person at the controls.

-Robert


Charles Talleyrand wrote:
I fly a small airplane (a Cessna 150) that is well maintained. I fly
over forests in good weather and typically during the day. My biggest
fear is the engine quits over the forest and I have no place to make a
deadstick landing except the tops of large trees.

I drive a moderate motorcycle (a Honda Nighthawk 750) at moderate
speeds through my small town and through the surrounding forests. My
biggest fears are either that I will slide on a patch of dirt on the
road and crash or someone will hit me with their car through
inattention.

I've been asked several times which of these things is more dangerous.
Can anyone provide some statistics on this?

-Thanks
-Charles Talleyrand

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 12:37:51 GMT, Matt Whiting
wrote:
So you've established that you are a better pilot than you are a
motorcyclist, but you aren't very good at either. :-)

Not sure if that is the case... There might be an issue with regards
to acceptance of certain levels of risk that is not exactly prudent,
especially in my younger days... But then again, I rode bikes for many
years before being able to fly aircraft... More hours in a particular
type of vehicle might entail a higher probability of having an
incident... The aircraft broken bones were from an engine out incident
in a gyrocopter... The W&B was off and it wouldn't flare into the
landing without the engine running... Broke a rib and a bone in my
foot... No big deal compared to the bones and other injuries that I've
encountered while riding motorcycles...

http://grumman581.googlepages.com/injuries

My math does not agree with personal flying to motorcycle fatalities are
about the same.

Personal GA makes up 50% of all GA flying, and accounts for 74% of the fatal
accidents. If you doubled personal flights, and did away with the rest,
fatal accidents would rise about 48%.

So - if you just looked at personal flying, and agreed that GA (as a whole)
is 6 to 8 times more likely to generate a fatality per mile, then the
personal flying comparison would make it 9 to 12 times more likely. Still
better then the 34 on a cycle.

Feel free to correct me if my math is wrong, but statistics aside, I would
rather load up my wife (and kids, but they would not fit on a bike) and fly
500 miles in a plane rather then on a cycle.

Alan.


"Michael" wrote in message
oups.com...
alank wrote:
So, motorcycle riders are 34 times more likely to die per mile then in a
car.

So far, so good.'

I believe the analysis on GA to cars is about 6 to 8 times more
likely. Looks like there is your answer.

Yes, but that is ALL of GA. It includes instruction, corporate, and
self-flown business travel, all of which are much safer than personal
flying. In fact, EVERY part of GA is safer than personal flying,
including cropdusting.

Once you compare motorcycle riding to personal flying, they're about
the same in terms of fatalities. Motorcycles do cause more injuries.

Michael

Charles Talleyrand wrote:
I fly a small airplane (a Cessna 150) that is well maintained. I fly
over forests in good weather and typically during the day. My biggest
fear is the engine quits over the forest and I have no place to make a
deadstick landing except the tops of large trees.

I drive a moderate motorcycle (a Honda Nighthawk 750) at moderate
speeds through my small town and through the surrounding forests. My
biggest fears are either that I will slide on a patch of dirt on the
road and crash or someone will hit me with their car through
inattention.

I've been asked several times which of these things is more dangerous.
Can anyone provide some statistics on this?

-Thanks
-Charles Talleyrand


Do you carry liquids or gels in the cessna? I hear that increases the
danger factor.

--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
71 Kawi H1
05 Toddler

On 24 Aug 2006 16:52:30 -0700, "Charles Talleyrand"
wrote:

I've been asked several times which of these things is more dangerous.
Can anyone provide some statistics on this?

I'm trying to think why it might matter. It would seem the only time
is if you're planning a trip and could fly or ride. But then so many
other factors come into it, such as transportation when you're at your
destination, time it takes to get there, things to do along the way,
etc.

Otherwise it's a moot point, akin to wondering about how many Ducatis
will fit on the head of an elephant.

What's more dangerous, chopping onions or hammering nails?

--
Turby the Turbosurfer

"Stubby" wrote in message
. ..


I dread the day when insurance becomes compulsory.

Same here. I don't have any life insurance and don't need any.

Who the **** has ever heard of compulsory life insurance? What are you
people talking about?

Bryan

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.

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

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote:
[ Re GA flying vs. motorcycle riding ]
I've been asked several times which of these things is more dangerous.
Can anyone provide some statistics on this?

Riding a motorcycle is more dangerous on both a per distance and per time
basis. See Table 4, columns 1 and 4 in this document:

"Cross Modal Safety Comparisons"
http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/...omparisons.pdf

That document concludes, among other things, that:

"a. High capacity regular public transport (RPT) travel (airline travel) is
the safest form of transport while general aviation is significantly less
safe than car travel;

b. Bus and rail are the safest forms of land transport having very similar
safety rates;

c. Motorcycling is the least safe form of transport."

So sell your bike and go flying. ;-)

alank wrote:
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.

But not when the number of participants is taken into account. Here
are some more statistics on risk per hour of various recreational and
other activities:
http://www.magma.ca/~ocbc/comparat.html
[Note that per hour is usually more appropriate for such dissimilar
activities than per mile since it would be rare that one would be
trying to decide whether to go to a given destination by plane or by
waterski or bicycle, but it would be reasonable to consider spending a
few hours on a Sunday afternoon on any of the three activites.]
Both GA and motorcycling come out rather high on this table whereas
bicycling and waterskiing have a much more moderate risk level.

But note that even the relatively high risk shown for GA is still
rather modest. Based on that figure, an individual who spent an hour
*every day* for their entire life in a private plane would still be
more likely to eventually die of some unrelated cause than in a plane
crash.