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Are air journeys safer than road journeys?

They may think that air travel is naturally more hazardous than motoring. Finally, a jet crashed is disastrous, with more deaths, injuries and material damages than a motor vehicle collision. Few US administration stats can answer this issue. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration creates and investigates traffic safety data for the state.

The Traffic Safety Facts Dataset of 2008 reduces the million road crashes and other stats to 1.27 deaths per 100 million mile driven. Conversely, the 1998 death toll was 1.58 deaths per 100 million mile. National Transportation Safety Board collects aircraft casualty information. Provisional 2008 figures show only 20 airline incidents for US airlines on regular services.

That results in almost zero casualties per million air mile. More than 5 million fatal crashes are more hazardous in terms of numbers than 20 air crashes. This is a more straightforward compare per 100 million mile of underground journeys, with 1.27 casualties and 80 traffic fatality and almost no injury cases, showing that air journeys are safe.

For 2008, the National Security Council has drawn up a mortality probability chart which further demonstrates the comparative risk of aviation and driver security. The probability of death in a car crash was 1 in 98 for life. According to Figure 1, the chances for air and spatial transportation (including air taxi and personal flights) stood at 7,178 for a life-long period.

From a statistical point of view, flight is much more safe than travel. But it can seem more risky because your perceptions of risks are more than just facts, says David Ropeik, a teacher of hazard communications at the Harvard School of Public Health. Riding offers more individual controls and gives a feeling of safety.