Word problem: how many die if Americans choose to drive an extra

[lindisfarne]

100,000,000 miles annually rather than flying? (Driving has more fatalities than flying, mile for mile; don't know the exact numbers though).

[ClassWarrior]

1. Not to mention the troops who will die for the oil to fuel those miles...

NGU.

[lindisfarne]

3. Actually, driving is more fuel efficient than flying. Even if there's just

one person in the car. And on average, there'd be more than one person in a car containing individual(s) who would have flown prior to today.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Averages about about 40,000 fatalities per year for cars in the U.S.

Major airlines, one fatality in the last 4 years (Southwest Airlines at MDW last winter).

[catnhatnh]

8. Whoa....

without EVEN googling, how about the kid in A CAR killed outside O'Hare last winter when a plane overshot....was that an automobile fatality?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. That's the one I was referring to.

The only major airline accident fatality in 4 years.

[catnhatnh]

10. Yep...

but include charter,commuter and all commercial craft and it jumps to 42...and when you compare it to motor vehicle rates, you would have to include general aviation deaths,plus ultralight and experimental aircraft deaths,baloonists, astronauts, and parachutists-and that's just to make up for drunk drivers and motorcyclists....in short, you are comparing the safest segment of a long-haul transportation system operated by highly skilled and paid operators,carefully screened to be in peak physical condition against the gamut of what runs down I-95 or US1....apples and oranges at best-really more like comparing a fish and a bicycle....

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. Good point. Add general aviation accidents and you get about 900 a year.

Still a lot less than driving. Realistically, though, the more accurate comparison would be deaths per miles traveled, and I don't have those numbers. I'm a pilot, and I know some kinds of flying are much more dangerous than others. But I feel a lot safer in a plane -- even a little one -- than I do in a car.

[catnhatnh]

13. Hey Cool....and I'm being a bit of a smart ass....

I KNOW it's safer,but just to be snarky I threw in stuff like Oshkosh and the Lakeland Fly-in to counteract some of the street madness I've seen-My only real point of dissention might be that there is almost no operational flight cycle under, say 100 miles, and most include more miles and more passengers...this seems somewhat discriminitory against single dui's at 2:15 am a mile and a half from home- know what I mean, Vern?

[lindisfarne]

14. You did specify "major" airline. And frankly, that's the comparison to

be made. Very little of the flying public flies anything other than commercial airlines.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Counter question: How many more middle eastern civilians have

died because Americans drive?? "And" consume a HUGE percent of the world's natural resources....

[lindisfarne]

5. Driving is more fuel efficient than flying. Although you're right on the

consumption of a huge percent of the world's natural resources. (I don't own a car ... although even though I do my best to keep my energy consumption way down and recycle everything I can, I'm still consuming more than the world's "average" citizen).

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Yes.... we are energy "hogs". Imagine had the "civilized" peoples

who drove the natives from the American grasslands and mountain ranges learned to live like the Aborigines or the native Americans themselves. Imagine how less stressed the planet would be, how much less war would have been scheduled, how much happier we would be as a people.

[lindisfarne]

7. The Native Americans did have their wars. And the way people lived

150 years ago is not a predictor of how they would have lived today. Americans used far less energy (per capita) 150 years ago - in fact, if we only consumed that much energy per capita today, the world would be in really good shape! As did every group on the planet.

[karlrschneider]

16. Not -necessarily-, to properly compare them you have to use

passenger-miles per gallon (liter, pound, Kg, etc)

My little Cessna 310 gets 8 MPG. If I have 6 on board, that's 48 P*M/G which is a lot more
fuel efficient than most cars with 1 or 2 people in them. Obviously the more pax in ANY vehicle,
the more efficient it is using this kind of analysis.

[we can do it]

11. There You Go Using Logic Again. We Are Not Supposed To Think, You Know

We are simply to be afraid and obey.

[SoCalDem]

17. Patriotic 'Merkins should just gas up the Hummer

stop at WalMart and stock up on treats..then head home & park themselves in front of the TV.. there's good stuff that needs watchin'.. Hannity & Colmes & all the fantastic Foxies...and of course American Idol will be starting up soon..

If they MUST go somewhere,the Hummer's all gassed up & ready to drive.. see the YOOOO ESSS AAAAY...

[lindisfarne]

15. Relevant statistics on driving vs. flying safety

Copying these from another poster on another forum

Each year in the US 1 out of 6800 drivers dies in an auto accident. The rate for airline passengers is 1 in 1.6 million.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99845.htm

There were 733,908,000 "Revenue Passenger Enplanements" 6-2004 to 5-2005

http://www.bts.gov/xml/air_traffic/src/index.xml#TwelveMonthsSystem

733,908,000 / 3000 = 244,636

So, if 3000 people had been killed in this plot, then

Approximately 1 out of every 244,636 airline passengers would have been killed in 2006 (based on 2004-2005 enplanements).

1 out of every 6800 automobile drivers/passengers is killed.

As usual, we are emphasizing the wrong threat.
===================================================

The poster didn't correct for miles travelled annually flying vs. driving but still, flying would have turned out to be much more safe.

[sweetheart]

18. How many billion women will suffer if western liberalism fails

It is not an option, failure of our values for the greedy demands of economic transport.

If the leaders of economic change are not willing to live by the system they're selling,
then we're at a problem, if a system when scaled to 6-7 billions will fish out all the
oceans and destroy every ecosystem on earth in an attempt to exploit all externalities
of nature until the water and the ground beneath our feet are sold to multinational
cults that are supported by the new religion of greed to the bottom.

And unless we get a grip on these cults, the rest of the world will reject the good
parts of western liberalism, and the fate of billions of women's political power,
in terms of wealth, education and a benchmark equal society that is not making
weapns and war all the time unfairly, criminally, disproportionately, torture,
slavery, and when the fox is in the henhouse, then it morphs in to a tv channel.