[FabHK]

Actually, it's not that easy. Airplanes are safer per mile.

Per trip, it looks different (for two reasons: a) planes are faster than cars, b) plane trips are generally longer than car trips).

You're probably around 10x more likely to die on your next plane trip than on your next car trip, from what I can tell.

[nkurz]

For those questioning these numbers, 10x might be a little high, but I think it's at least in the right direction. Consider how many car trips the average person takes per year, versus the number of times they travel by plane. Travel by commercial airline is 100's of times safer per mile than travel by private vehicle, but the average plane trip is well over 100 times the distance of the average car trip.

Here are Wikipedia's numbers for a 1990-2000 in the UK (because that's what they happen to have easily available):

  Deaths per Billion  
      Journeys Hours Kilometers
  Car:    40    130    3.10
  Air:   117     30     .05

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...

So for an average journey by each a couple decades ago, this says that travelling (a long journey) by plane is about 3x the risk of death as travelling (a short journey) by car. Does anyone have more recent numbers for the world as a whole?

[FabHK]

Come to think of it, I probably misspoke, because I was looking at fatalities per vehicle journey instead of per passenger journey (and a plane carries more pax than a car).

Best as I can estimate now, the risk of dying on your next (scheduled air carrier, part 121) plane journey is maybe a third as on your next car journey (in the US, thanks to the amazing safety record there).

The aviation industry likes to quote fatalities per passenger mile, which is very favourable to air travel, and of course also relevant if you decide which mode of transport to take for a given journey from A to B.

However, if we want to look at how twitchy you feel for taking a typical car journey vs a typical plane journey, we need to look at fatalities per passenger journey, and they bring the numbers closer together by a factor of around 100.

Numbers for general aviation are much worse: you're about 200 times as likely to die on the next GA trip than car trip.

There are just many more cars around than planes. Also, note that 2% of all B737, 4% of all B747, and 5% of all A300 ever built have been hull losses (including non-fatal incidents). But yeah, aviation has gotten amazingly safe in the last decades.

Would be interesting to look at corresponding numbers for Europe or the world.

See the Uber Elevate report, page 17, for some numbers.

https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf

[yaps8]

Some stats on Wikipedia may fuel this discussion [1] and conclude than planes are safer by km and by time, not by journey though this is an anecdotical thing (not relevant to compare 10 min trip to work to 8 hour flight).

Besides this is based on old data and as others have pointed out flying has become even safer in the last years.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...

[nkurz]

as others have pointed out flying has become even safer in the last years

Modern cars have also become much safer. Which has become safer faster, and thus in which way has the ratio changed? (Real question, I don't know the answer but would be interested in the updated numbers)

[tzs]

I don't really care all that much about how safe a given mode of transportation is on average. I care about how safe it is on my particular trip.

With both flying and driving you can take steps to get better than average odds.

With flying, you can pick airlines that have a better safety record. You can schedule your trips to avoid flying in bad weather. Flying nonstop, or minimizing layovers if you cannot get nonstop, should help, too.

With driving, you can pick a car that has good crash protection. You can keep your car well maintained. You can travel at times when accident rates are lower. You can pick routes with low accident rates. You can drive like you are a 35+ year old female. You can drive at a time when you are sober, not on drugs, well rested, and healthy.

There's so much variation on the driving side, I doubt it is possible to actually figure out the risk if someone takes most or all of those steps.

[cdelsolar]

yeah that doesn't sound right at all. There hasn't been a fatal plane crash in the US in many years now, and there's something like 75K flights a day. And there's about 100 deaths a day from car crashes.

[cblades]

You'd have to break your numbers out a bit, but it sounds to me like you're lumping in GA with commercial flights.

[bronco21016]

How do you come up with that? It completely flies in the face of conventional wisdom.