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Are cars safer than airplanes?

Q: Are cars safer than airplanes? After reading one of your articles in another group of this network, I am asking this Q.

Krishna: Yes, airline people, pilots and psychologists say this to soothe nervous individuals.

It seems it is based on an article published in Scientific American equating a transatlantic flight to 100 miles of car travel to represent a one in a million risk of dying. But it is likely a misinterpretation or an outdated statistic. While it's true that flying is statistically much safer than driving, particularly in terms of distance traveled, the specific ratio of 100 miles to a transatlantic flight is not accurate based on current data.

However, you can't directly compare the number of deaths from air crashes to those from car accidents without considering the frequency of travel and the number of people involved. Air travel is significantly less frequent than car travel, but plane crashes can involve many fatalities at once, while car accidents typically involve fewer deaths per incident.

While going on roads, you have control over your vehicles, you can escape sometimes if you are a bit careful when involved in an accident. But while travelling by air, you feel helpless as somebody or something else controls your safety. Escaping takes time and effort. You won't be comfortable with that thought.

Moreover, the heights at which these things occur during air travel, the huge fires these accidents create, the massive impacts, hundreds of deaths create a more scary picture in your mind.

Watch this video that shows how things can go wrong:

Here's why a direct comparison is problematic:

Frequency of Travel: People travel by car much more often than they fly.

Number of Passengers: Airplanes carry many more passengers at once than most vehicles on the road. Incident Severity: While car accidents are more common, plane crashes, when they occur, often result in a higher number of fatalities due to the large number of people on board.

To make a meaningful comparison, you need to consider:

Deaths per mile traveled: This provides a better sense of the relative risk of each mode of transportation.

Deaths per trip: This can also be a useful metric, especially if you're comparing the safety of longer trips (like flying) to shorter trips (like driving).

Accident rates:Analyzing the number of accidents per passenger mile or per trip can help assess the safety of each mode of transportation.

While you might be more likely to be involved in a car accident, you are statistically more likely to die in a plane crash if one were to occur during your flight.

Okay, one in millions of air travel!

But some people, like pilots, travel their whole lives in planes but never meet an accident. Some individuals board a plane for the first time, yet it crashes, like it happened in the recent Air India crash.

That is one accident per one trip!

That is stats for you!

It’s a little hard to compare the statistics since airplane safety is rated in hours of flight, and auto safety is in distance driven.

Still people say that -

commercial aircraft are flown by two highly trained and experienced pilots who get recurrent training and medical checkups on a regular basis. Cars are driven by anyone with a set of keys. The driver’s license exam isn’t particularly rigorous.

This is not true with developing countries! In these countries safety checks are rare, 'high training' scarcely happens, medical checkups are just an eye wash! Pilots in these countries themselves have said this.

Airplanes have to conform to mechanical and maintenance standards. Only a few states have any kind of mechanical inspection for cars. And again, it’s not particularly rigorous. Not true for every country in the world.

When commercial aircraft fly their pilots are talking to air traffic controllers who are coordinating aircraft and the orderly flow of flights to and from airports and en route. Drivers in cars routinely do all sorts of dumb things in terms of where and when they’re driving. Okay, agree, less control on roads.

If two airplanes get within a mile or so (1–2 km) of each other that’s considered a close call (except on landing or takeoff). Cars are routinely at highway speeds 6–10 feet apart (2–3 meters). At speed it only takes a brief flinch to cause an accident. Agreed.

How can you survive a plane crash? People give all sorts of advises like wear flip-flops instead of high heels to run fast from a burning plane, cover your entire body with non-inflammable material (dress that cover your entire body like long-sleeved shirts), opting for seats in the backside of the plane or behind the wings (don't forget that in a few crashes, passengers in the front of the plane fared better),

try to sit in or near an exit row, select aisle seats as they are somewhat safer than window or center seats.

The first 90 seconds after a crash are the most important — if you can stay calm and move out of the plane quickly, your odds of survival are much greater.

But the success of surviving depends on several things in air travel which are not in your control.

This uncertainty makes several people nervous.

But when I heard pilots speak about safety in planes, I am convinced that they are safe in more advanced countries and airlines.

In case of developing and poor countries - que sera sera sera -

"whatever will be, will be". A sense of acceptance and resignation about the future, suggesting that what is meant to happen will happen! People do travel by air if there is no other option available.

Are cars safer than airplanes?

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