[bostonsre]

Maybe that it would be interesting to know what the numbers actually are. There is the common saying that you are more likely to get in an accident on the way to the airport than traveling on the plane, but knowing what the likelihood of both of those as well as the likelihood of an accident on a max could show this all to be hysteria or actually well founded.

[Sirizarry]

Take it like this: If you have to ride share and you hear that a common car used by drivers of Uber is having an increased failure rate, not passing inspections and have been temporarily banned from being on the road until more is learned; I think a pretty fair response is to try and avoid entering that car regardless of the ratio of incidents when driving that car, and when biking to the dealership to get it

[gruez]

>I think a pretty fair response is to try and avoid entering that car regardless of the ratio of incidents when driving that car, and when biking to the dealership to get it

"avoid" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here though. If doing so doesn't cost me anything, then avoiding that car is a non-brainer. However in real life nothing is really costless. Avoiding that car at the very least would cause you to wait longer. If that car is your daily driver, and you don't have a backup, then avoiding that car might cost you hundreds per month. That's why you need to factor in statistics and figure what the absolute risk is, and whether it's worth "avoiding".

[Sirizarry]

Right it would be a bigger problem if I owned and depended on this hypothetical car but my hypothetical self only needs it for Ubers. Maybe I’ll switch to Lyft or local Taxi service. That might make me wait more but the point is that this isn’t a hysterical response, much like monitoring and avoiding the 737 MAX until further notice isn’t hysterical. It’s simply sensible.

[zamadatix]

To not first consider the actual absolute safety level before considering reasons that might change relatively is not sensible. You can't just come up with reasons to fear something and conclude it's therefore best to avoid, that's completely sidestepping any reasoning about the actual risk and replacing it with emotion.

Taken another way: That your Uber driver is not as safe as others is not, in itself, a reason to reschedule your life to avoid them on the principle there is a safer option somewhere else. It's reason to ask the question how unsafe are they actually and is that level of difference vs normal something the extra inconvenience is worthwhile for. The point of someone mentioning cars is, if you actually quantify the risk change, it's likely you're rescheduling your flights around a risk which is less concerning than the rest of your day to day life and things you accept for getting to the airport in the first place. Without quantifiably discounting that you're letting news headlines dictate your life by fear instead of acting sensibly.

[j-bos]

Voting with wallets to counter negative trend in an industry made safe by regulations written in blood, seems more reasonable than hysterical.

[bostonsre]

But we can't be sure unless we know the actual stats. A lot of news operates by driving sensational stories, the more hysteria and doom they invoke, the more views they get. Are we talking 1% more likely or 0.00000001% more likely to get in an accident?