On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 22:43:19 +0000 (UTC), (G Farris)
wrote:

Today I spent four hours in the car and one hour and a half in a Cessna 172. I
guess my risk in the car was probably greater

I used to tell my wife the same thing ("the most dangerous part of
flying is over when I park the car at the airport") but it's not
really true. As posted, flying is more comprable to riding a
motorcycle than driving a car.

But perhaps you meant that 4 hours car 1.5 flying. Yes, that may
well be true. Most of these comparisons are done on an hour-for-hour
basis, but sometimes on a passenger-mile basis.

I recently saw comparisons on the safest passenger vehicle. It wasn't
a SUV or a pickup, as one might assume, but a Toyota Avalon. (In this
case, only driver fatalities were counted, so as to avoid being skewed
by passengers.) Then I realized what was going on: Avalon, Accord,
Camry, then Civic, Corolla, etc -- the more likely a young man was to
drive the vehicle, the more dangerous it appeared to be. Even the
Subaru Outback is significantly more dangerous than the Avalon, but
then you don't see as many middle-aged women driving Outbacks, and you
never see a young man driving an Avalon.

I wonder how much of flying's apparent dangers (and motorcycles' too?)
comes not from the vehicle but from the driver?

all the best -- Dan Ford
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