[svara]

Your point that accidents per journey might be more interesting than accidents per passenger-kilometer is a very good one, however it seems like the data in the table in the Wikipedia article you linked is a bit old ("The following table displays these statistics for the United Kingdom 1990–2000").

If you take a look at the "Fatalities per trillion revenue passenger kilometres" plot in the same article, it looks like flying got a lot safer since 2000 (maybe ~10x?).

The conclusion that flying isn't a lot safer than other common modes of transport when you compare by journey is still correct though... (But maybe it is a little bit safer, or similarly safe).

[HarryHirsch]

The other thing is that the statistics for car travel include all journeys by car. You can do a lot to improve your own safety by avoiding the common risk factors: not driving drunk, driving in daytime (that also avoids drunk drivers), not being in an all-teenage vehicle, driving well-rested & so on. If you do that, per journey you'll be safer than in your regular commercial aviation airplane.