Comment by _trampeltier
2 days ago
We are flying "faster" on earth.
You often hear about the fatality rate per 100 million or 1 billion passenger miles in transportation statistics, but over the last 15 years, U.S. airlines have averaged less than 1 fatality per passenger light-year traveled
Technically when tweeted for the given selective timespan, but no longer true since the crash this year in DC.
Still, mind blowing. When fact checking this I learned we went over 2 passenger light years worth of airline travel with no fatalities during that time frame. Incredible safety record. Real shame this year has been so terrible for our reputation.
I'm kinda interesting in the same statistics for trains, although I wouldn't be surprised if we don't travel near that distance with trains.
The same statistic for trains is a few hundred deaths per "passenger-light-year". Or 0.004 fatalities per 100 million miles. [1]
[1] https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2024-10/...
Some back of the envelope calculations give me roughly ~40,000 deaths per passenger-light-year if you travel by car instead of train.
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Yes, when I saw the tweet, I thought the next crash might be near, and then happened DC soon after.
Even if you include that crash in the numbers, the safety numbers are still incredible. Something like 10 passenger-light-days per fatality. Quite lumpy though, with the median deaths per year being 0, and the average number of deaths being 5-10.
Good news is that air travel is getting radically safer. If you do the "flight passenger light year" math for 1980-2000, you only make it a few light-hours per fatality, and for the 20 years prior to that, it was about 50 light minutes per fatality. Still safer than cars, on average (although some cars are much safer than others, and a lot of your risk depends on driving habits).