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[2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1295843/number-fatalitie...

I got 47 deaths per day from the roughly 17,000 fatalities that are directly attributed to drunk driving each year[1]. Even if we arbitrarily halve that to account for at-fault deaths at drivers' own hands, that leaves ~23 people dying, each day, because of drunks on our roads.

In contrast, around 300 people died in total on public transportation in 2020[2]. In 2019, 34 million people commuted daily by public transportation[3].

By contrast, around 76% of American commuters drive to work[4]. Assuming that "commutes to work" is the same as "employed," that means 76% of 158 million[5], or around 120 million driving commuters.

In other words: 4 times as many people commute by car than by public transport, but at least 20 times as many die each day just via the canonical example of unsafety on public transport. And the actual ratio is likely far higher, since the best number I could find for public transport fatalities (under 1/day) is not filtered by accident, suicide, crime, natural causes, &c. Thus the claim: the things that people claim to fear about public transport are far more real as dangers when commuting by car.

[1]: https://troopers.ny.gov/impaired-driving

[3]: https://www.apta.com/news-publications/public-transportation...

[4]: https://www.statista.com/chart/18208/means-of-transportation...

[5]: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

NY troopers contradict NHSTA (https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving) by a lot. I wonder how do they gather their statistics?

But your math does not make sense even with the data you have: you said if the drunks were killing in subway at the same rate as they do on the road then 47 people were killed in subway every day yet you took the 47 number from much larger pool of drivers. Should not it be a quarter of that, 12 people?

Your 300 fatalities in public transit could be interpreted as the fatalities caused by the public transit, are you sure they count people stabbed and/or shot waiting for a bus? The page does not show the source and what counts as the death in public transit (it requires some kind of payment for that). If somebody is stabbed while waiting for a bus, does it count?

[1]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23639439_Epidemiolo...

I have no idea how they gather their statistics, that’s just the first source I found! Let’s use NHTSA instead and assume their numbers are better; even so, over an order of magnitude more people die from drunk drivers than do whatsoever on a daily basis on public transport, even after you adjust for ridership.

> Should not it be a quarter of that, 12 people?

I adjusted the 300 public transit deaths up by a factor of 4, which is the same as adjusting the 17,000 or 12,000 drunk driving deaths down by a factor of 4.

> Your 300 fatalities in public transit could be interpreted as the fatalities caused by the public transit, are you sure they count people stabbed and/or shot waiting for a bus?

Why should it? Drunk driving statistics don’t count the number of deaths that happen when people are arbitrarily murdered at gas stations or convenience stores, even when the perpetrator happens to be drunk. They also don’t include other forms of influenced driving, road rage, or anything else that would further bring the number up.

Unless you have a specific reason to believe that there’s a silent epidemic of bus station shootings, this reads as special pleading.

It’s surprisingly difficult to find breakdowns by cause for deaths on public transit. But here’s one: from 1990 to 2003, there were 668 deaths in the subway system. The majority were suicides, the largest minority were accidents, and 1.5% were homicides[1]. In other words, even during a 13 year period when NYC (a city that’s routinely characterized as dangerous) was much more dangerous than it is currently, less than one person was murdered per year in a transit system that carries millions of commuters daily.

>I adjusted the 300 public transit deaths up by a factor of 4, which is the same as adjusting the 17,000 or 12,000 drunk driving deaths down by a factor of 4.

You adjusted 300 fatalities per year by a factor of 4 that you got from the number of transit commuters and the number of the motorists and got 47 people per day? I am still not following.

>Why should it?

Because you don't need to wait for bus when you drive?

>Unless you have a specific reason to believe that there’s a silent epidemic of bus station shootings, this reads as special pleading.

I don't believe it's silent. I have reasons to believe a lot of people get assaulted on the bus stations and in subway stations.

> and 1.5% were homicides[1]

10 people killed in NYC subway over 13 years? I find this number a bit on the lower side TBQH. Perhaps they count "pushed under the train in such a way it could not have been written off as suicide or negligence on the victim's part"?

> You adjusted 300 fatalities per year by a factor of 4 that you got from the number of transit commuters and the number of the motorists and got 47 people per day? I am still not following.

47 people per day is just the ratio from the NY troopers' site's statistics. If we use the NHTSA instead, it's 32. If you then adjust that downwards by 4, you get 8, which is an order of magnitude higher than the daily deaths on public transit by all causes.

> Because you don't need to wait for bus when you drive?

Sure. Instead you wait at gas stations, rest stations, wander through underground parking lots, and so forth. This is not a compelling justification for introducing a category error to the comparison, and I suspect that it isn't one that will ultimately favor your position (given that 5% of all violent crime happens in the first two categories).

> I don't believe it's silent. I have reasons to believe a lot of people get assaulted on the bus stations and in subway stations.

Sources that substantiate this would be fantastic. Absent those, it's an unsubstantiated feeling.

> Perhaps they count "pushed under the train in such a way it could not have been written off as suicide or negligence on the victim's part"?

The NYPD does not miss an opportunity to characterize events as homicides or other violent crimes. Again: unless you have a sourced reason to believe that the NYPD lied about homicide numbers in the subway system between 1990 and 2003, this is baseless.

namecheapTA 1429 days ago

The biggest difference is, atleast for me personally, I know how to make sure I don't die on the highway... I don't drink, I don't drive recklessly, I keep my car maintained, and I pay attention to my surroundings. So I feel my odds of not being a statistic are pretty good.

I have almost no real way not to end up a BART statistic.

When I lived in a worker's paradise with public transit for everyone, criminals camped outside subway stations as they provided a good and stable stream of prospective mugging victims. I wonder how many muggings happen to transit users compared to motorists in the US?

[1]: https://cspdailynews.com/company-news/c-stores-are-4th-most-...

One in 20 violent crimes overall happen in either gas stations or convenience stores[1], so there would have to be a lot of public transport muggings to compensate for that!

namecheapTA 1428 days ago

Once again this is a bit misleading. Sure there are crimes at gas stations. I don't stop at those sketchy looking inner city gas stations. Also, most crimes are against the employees of the stations. And finally, there are a lot of crimes at gas stations, but there are probably 50+ million people visiting the stations daily. Per interaction, they're pretty safe especially if you stick to safe looking ones.

It falls back to exactly what I said. I know how not to get killed on the roads, and I know how not to get attacked at a gas stations.

But when I get on a locked train, there's almost nothing I can do to avoid being a victim at that point beyond fighting harder than my attacker.

Great thing is that you are free to not visit gas station's convenience store, can you use transit without visiting stations?