Originally Posted by
Superguy
I brought out the usual arguments about more likely to die on the way to the airport, more likely to be struck by lightning, blah blah.
Pretty much his fear came down to not being in control - that he was at someone else's mercy. When he's driving, he has control of the car and can dodge, etc. I pointed out that he has less control than he thinks - he can't control the other idiots around him and there's no guarantee that he'd have the room, skill, or even the chance to react.
While not advocating paranoia about air travel or absurd/extreme measures, I have always wondered about the validity of the stats that claim flying is so much safer than driving and the claims that drivers actually don't have much/enough control to make a difference.
For example, a large plurality of car-accident injuries and fatalities happen between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. and/or involve alcohol/drug consumption on the part of the driver of that car (not the driver of the other car, which I cannot control). I can control both of those factors by avoiding the roads between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. and not driving drunk or riding with a drunk driver. I wonder how much of the safety margin between flying and driving is eliminated by those simple choices. Add more margin by not driving sleepy, minimizing or avoiding cell phone use, etc.
In contrast, I have little to no control over the rested state or impaired state of commercial airline pilots, other than FAA regulations and the margin provided by requiring a copilot. I would not have driven a car under the conditions that the pilots of Continental/Colgan Air 3407 were operating, but it's unlikely any of the passengers knew how sleep-deprived and distracted their crew was.