How the fuck are ferry and train so high? Must be including suicides for trains, not really use how the ferry gets so much though. Heart attacks on long distance ferry trips? But then would expect similar from planes.
My guess for ferries would be that most ferry trips are very short. That means less total travel per trip, so for the same risk per trip it gets much higher risk per distance.
As someone who lives on an island, and regularly takes a sea ferry though unprotected waters, (ie not through a bay or harbor, waves have 100s of miles to build) that stat makes sense to me.
Id guess a lot of that could be attributed to people falling and injuring themselves.
As my dad would have said, “Landlubbers don’t respect the Sea.”
That floor may be shifting 6+’ in one direction or another, and people without their sea legs will be getting up for the head, snack bar, or just to walk off the seasickness, then falling as the boat shifts.
And theres a lot of metal, and protruding metal (bulkheads, cleats, even just the metal floors and walls, etc). Even when the sea is calm as glass, the boat can still shudder or bounce randomly as it hits a random bit of turbulence. And its common for small kids to be running around or, say, an elderly person walking with a cane, not holding onto a railing to take a spill.
Finally, theres generally going to be a wait for advanced medical treatment, until you make it to port. Ive seen one person med evac-ed out, by helicopter, so its possible, but that was a crewman who’s arm was amputed by machinery. For the average concussion/ broken bone, theres only so much the ships medic can do, and you’re waiting til the ferry is docked for an ambulance.
The other risk is lost at sea incidents. Ferries tend to have pretty good fencing/ railings to prevent people falling overboard, but people do dumb shit. Like climbing or straddling those railings. And if its even 15 minutes before someone reports you, at 12mph, thats already 3 miles the boat’s traveled, making a large (and constantly growing) search area to find you in, and you’re a tiny speck spot in a vast sea. I know our ferries have only had one in my lifetime (and it was deemed a potential suicide- solo traveler who turned out to have no arrival plans like lodging arranged, went missing off anight ferry)
I think with a train is if it happens… thats a lot of death you know?
Motorcycle accidents have become very frequent in some twenty years in my region, with Thailand being on top.
Where I live, people are buying up motorcycles because they’re cheap and gives them more mobility than a car and most forms of public transportation they deem as frustratingly slow. But with them having little or no formal driving education, coupled with DUI, do have a lot of accidents happening.
what’s going on with ferries…
also how much does it change if you take out the Staten Island Ferry?
Quite a few crappy ferries sink weekly in South East Asia, usually overloaded way beyond safety margins.
Probably same with busses. Half a century old going down a mountain with no barriers.
You’d figure the extra passengers would make the ratio go down you know?
The extra passengers make the ferries go down in the first place, so there’s that…
On the other hand, most ferry trips aren’t that long, distance-wise.
I guess it depends how many billion people were on the ferry when someone died
But how do they die? How many are killed by other drivers?
I’ve wanted a motorcycle for decades. NHTSA’s stats on motorcycle accidents send very mixed signals:
- Thirty-four percent of motorcycle riders in fatal crashes in 2023 had no valid motorcycle licenses. -In 2023 motorcycle riders in fatal crashes had higher percentages of alcohol impairment than drivers of any other motor vehicle type (26% for motorcycles, 24% for passenger cars, 20% for light trucks, and 4% for large trucks).
- Forty-one percent of motorcycle riders who died in single-vehicle crashes in 2023 were alcohol-impaired
- Motorcycle riders killed in traffic crashes at night were two and a half times more frequently alcohol-impaired than those killed during the day (38% and 15%) in 2023.
- In States without universal helmet laws, based on known helmet use, 51 percent of motorcyclists killed in 2023 were not wearing helmets, as compared to 10 percent in States with universal helmet law
So basically, have a license and training and don’t drink. Helmets are good for your health.
…
Twenty-four percent of motorcycles in fatal traffic crashes in 2023 collided with fixed objects, compared to 16 percent for passenger cars, 12 percent for light trucks, and 4 percent for large trucks.
Don’t ride with a loonitick.
In 2023 there were 3,419 fatal two-vehicle crashes each involving a motorcycle and another type of vehicle. In 46 percent (1,588) of these crashes, the other vehicles were turning left while the motorcycles were going straight, passing, or overtaking other vehicles.
Well, that sucks :(
Yeah, speaking as a rider from the USA it’s a mixed bag. If you ride safe (licensed and know what you are doing, not drunk, wear a helmet, and assume you are invisible) it’s orders of magnitude more safe than the statistics say. Sadly, there are a lot of reckless riders dying on bikes.
Still, a ton of drivers will absolutely drive like you are invisible and just plow into you. You also have to ride carefully and be constantly aware of your bike and your surroundings. Plan for bad situations as you see them forming even though most of the time nothing happens. Small mistakes can be negated by four wheels but won’t be forgiven on two.
I didn’t start until the pandemic, which gave me an opportunity to work remotely for a time and save money. I have enjoyed riding. The motivation to be present in the moment for the sake of safety is a bit zen for me. In a car I feel like I can arrive at work deep in thought about the horrors of the world and not even remember how I got there. Admittedly, as I got more comfortable on the bike, my mind can still wander but it’s easier to snap back and focus on not dying on the bike.
Still, a ton of drivers will absolutely drive like you are invisible and just plow into you.
I’ve had this experience in a miata and Fiero. Low roofline + small car = invisibility cloke :(
Yeah that’s always key to these stats and it’s never reported. If you’re not drunk when you get behind the wheel of a vehicle the safety by a lot.
This is especially true of motorcycles, where in Western countries they often go hand in hand with the time honored pastime of, “Let’s all ride our Harleys to the bar and get absolutely sideways, and then ride our Harleys to another bar.” I do know for sure that a large portion of motorcycle wrecks in general are single vehicle incidents, i.e. the rider ran out of skill and simply ate shit into a ditch, tree, guardrail, or the nearest Jersey wall.
I’d also be interested to see the source to determine what the geographical range of this is, i.e. whether or not it includes Southeast Asia where basically the entire population conducts all of its affairs from the back of a small motorbike.
At the end of the day, if you slam into something on your bike you’re pretty much guaranteed to be worse off than slamming into the same thing in a car or a bus. But you’re still not getting me off of mine.
It doesn’t change the stats in the slightest, you’re more likely to die on a bike, it doesn’t really make any difference who’s at fault if you’re dead. 90% of the accidents being caused by unobservant car drivers won’t save you.
You are more likely to die riding a bike than other forms of transportation but riding responsibly and defensively will absolutely change the severity of the stats.
A driver could still plow through you and you are still more likely to die - I’ll absolutely concede that. You are just way, way more likely to die if you don’t know how to ride (unlicensed), are impaired by alcohol or something, wear no helmet or other gear, and/or ride recklessly or carelessly.
The stats are the stats, driving a car everywhere at 15mph and covering it in airbags would probably change the car stats as well. If everyone drove perfectly and maintained their vehicles properly then we’d get a nice flat line.
You’re way more likely to die if you don’t know how to drive a car or do so drunk as well. The graph is showing the relative unsafeness of various vehicles as a whole, the fact being drunk or dumb on a bike has an outsize impact on killing bikers emphasises the fact it’s less safe.
I’ve absolutely nothing against bikes or bikers and I’d suspect that overall biker’s deaths are likely to be more self contained and have lesser impact on other road users.
The stats are the stats
…
The graph is showing the relative unsafeness of various vehicles as a whole
Yes. As a whole. As an average of the entire population.
the fact being drunk or dumb on a bike has an outsize impact on killing bikers emphasises the fact it’s less safe.
Which I acknowledge and don’t dispute. Bikes are inherently less safe than cars.
Cars have a lot of mandatory safety features like airbags, crumple zones, and seatbelts. They have four wheel stability and four points of contact on the road. They are relatively forgiving when it comes to mistakes and crashes.
Bikes don’t even have universal helmet laws in every state… and if they do mandate helmets, often a brain bucket is legally sufficient. However, with only two points of contact, and a potentially high rate of acceleration, it is much easier to lose control and crash, especially if you are riding recklessly or without experience.
My point is that inexperience and recklessness can lead to a fatal crash much more easily on a motorcycle and likely contribute to the statistics for motorcycle fatalities more than it does for car fatalities.
Basically, squids kind of juice the numbers and make them more scary. It’s not just squids - riding is not as safe as driving. Still, if you plan to ride responsibly your odds will be better than the stats suggest. Yes, the same logic applies to anything, but I believe it applies to bikes more than it applies to cars.
Doing hard things is harder to do. This doesn’t mean you can’t successfully do hard things it just means you have to try harder to do them. Taking a shortcut often ends in failure. In this case, failure can mean injured or dead.
And no, I’m not trying to say I’m cool and skilled because I ride a bike. I’m not yet that experienced or skilled on a bike… but I ride responsibly. I take it slow. I wear protective gear. I’m aware of my limits and I push them carefully.
It does because if you know you aren’t going to drive your bike when drunk (and other reckless driving factors) you will be safer than the numbers indicate.
90% of the accidents being caused by unobservant car drivers won’t save you.
You have a source for this or did you make up this 90% number on the spot? Would be nice to have actual numbers on this since elsewhere in the thread someone else is saying over half of motorcycle fatalities are single vehicle accidents, which means it’s biker could potentially have done something to avoid it.
Thirty-five percent of motorcyclist deaths in 2023 occurred in single-vehicle crashes, and 65% occurred in multiple-vehicle crashes.
The most harmful events in 2023 for 3,843 (60%) of the 6,432 motorcycles in fatal crashes were collisions with motor vehicles in transport.
Unexpected - I thought flying would be by magnitudes safer than anything, but it’s in the same magnitude as bus, and not even train is x10. I always thought that all those safety regulations were unnecessary, just compensating for some psychological factor of how it FEELS dangerous due to overreporting, history and other factors. But apparently, they are needed so it just remains barely safer than other forms of public transportation.
Worth noting that this data shows flying to be two orders of magnitude safer than travel by car. I think what this showed me is that train, subway, and bus are all somewhat safer than I expected, rather than that air travel is less safe than I expected.
Pretty sure trains are much safer for passengers. But they get more suicides on the rails.
The stat is for passenger deaths. People jumping in front of the train are not passengers, so don’t count for that.
I think what’s likely to be a big cause of train passenger deaths is the derailments they sometimes have in India. Those trains tend to be extremely overcrowded so one derailment can cause a lot of deaths.
I’ll be honest, this will be skewed heavily by most motorcycles are not designed for two or more people
And most motorcyclists know that, and NEVER have any passengers, which self-selects for the risk takers heavily.
Also heavily skewed by the fact that most motorcycle deaths are not caused by the driver, but by other road users not looking, and doing stupid shit like taking a turn blind at 50mph then running the motorcyclist over.
I’ve been riding motorcycles Since I was 12. I’m in my 50’s. I’ve never had a road accident, despite having ridden crotch rockets for a few years. I’ve had a few dirt ones, but without major breakage.
I have very rarely carried someone, especially because many passengers will intuitively counteract your leanings.
I’m now considering quitting, because I’m aware that I don’t have the reflexes or 360° degree awareness I used to have.
A lot of people shouldn’t be riding, they have a car mentality.
Fairies are 3rd on the list.
Shhh! They prefer Fey-Folk.
I wonder how these stats would change if there weren’t cars on the road. I mean its pretty obvious if a car and a motorcycle crash the motorcycle’s gonna have it worst.
The numbers would go down by half, which is meaningful, but also way less than you’d want it to. I can’t be arsed to pull up the NHTSA data url right now, but I use the factoid all the time when I talk to people about my riding: give or take 54% of motorcycle deaths are single vehicle accidents. Of those, the vast majority involve alcohol or speeding. So if I avoid alcohol I cut my chances by a large factor.
Speeding is slightly fuzzier, because the statistics are built from crash reports by police, and you can never know if they take the word of a witness that a motorcycle passed at a 4mph difference in speed, which, c’mon, is not the same as someone whizzing down a canyon road at 20mph or more over the limit.
but I use the factoid all the time
My favorite “factoid” is that the -oid part originally means “resembling,” like a humanoid is something that only looks human, so technically a factoid would be something that only resembles fact. However, I’m not a dirty prescriptivist and I understood perfectly what you meant, so please carry on.
Presciptivism is where it’s at, broseidon! I use factoid for when something seems like a fact, but you can’t verify it right then. I know the internet often uses it for something quoted so much that people take it as fact even though it’s false.
Wikipedia just hates us all. I don’t want it to be a brief truth, waaah!
I hate the concept of “brief truth”. The Germans probably have a word for it. things can stop being true. Everything is a brief truth on a long enough timeline. By this definition “the moon exists” is a factoid because very briefly from now (on a cosmological timeline) that’s practically already false. Bah!
motorcycle vs. motorcycle is gonna be like medieval jousting
Didn’t you know? This is what me and my buddies get up to on Saturday nights.
Motorcycle cops think they’re hot shit because they can weave between a bunch of cones. Amateurs. Lets see you try to work the throttle, brake, and clutch on a dirtbike while also wielding a 10’ long piece of PVC pipe with a boxing glove on the end of it.
Or an average day in south east asia
so you’re saying i should buy a motorbike? nice. On my way!
I feel like measuring this data based on miles is bad. This data would be much more relevant if it was measured in passenger travel hours instead.
A plane can travel like 500 miles in an hour. I feel that this skews the data significantly since its being compared to vehicles that should not typically be covering over 100 miles per hour.
I was thinking the same thing, but if the goal is to get from point a to point b then the real question is what gets you there the safest.
For example, if you wanted to know what the safest way to get from Los Angeles to San Francisco was or what the relative danger of each travel method was, this would be the right way to frame the data. The fact that it takes longer to travel with a car than a plane doesn’t factor into the safety of the travel. You still go the same distance.
This doesn’t work to compare that either, because highway travel has less intersections, where I would think most accidents happen.
TBF, surprise traffic congestion (ie. some more surprising than others) and similar situations wherein humans are likely to get agitated and thus make shitty, abrupt choices… Are right up there with intersections. 🤌🏼
The only logical conclusion is the faster you go the safer you are.
I’ve tried to tell the cops this, and did you know it didn’t work.
No dice on my argument that I’m trying to keep myself warm via air friction like the space shuttle, either.
Given the difference between the first and other places, I don’t believe that switching to time instead of length would actually change the significance of the top placement.
Any other reorder on the list is just shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.
Not saying bikes aren’t the most dangerous, but comparing against the distance skews this. A plane trip is usually quite a bit longer than any other.
Not sure how else to measure it though, maybe against number of trips traveled?
Found some data on this. Certainly not a common way of measuring this. Looks like at least one of these is fatality by mode and doesn’t take into account total percent of trips.
Doesn’t appear to change anything. Flying remains the safest. Motorcycles remain the most dangerous.
Make sure to sign your donor cards!
Number of trips sounds more reasonable. It will show the odds of completing a trip for different means of transport
Hours of travel time would likely be a good fit too.
hours doesn’t come as close to the metric that you’d like though
the purpose of travel is to get from point a to point b, so you want to measure the likelihood of death when travelling the comparable trips
hours doesn’t really work because different modes of transport complete the trip in very different times. distance however is relatively similar
Except that a short trip is less risk exposure than a long trip.
400km by train is so much less risky than 200km by rocket.
Apples and oranges.
A 200km train ride is less risk exposure than a 400km train ride.
A plane isn’t as versatile though. You can’t go everywhere on a plane, train, or (to a lesser extent) bus, but you can in a car, motorcycle, or if you’re committed, bicycle.
Go go gadget spitball math!
Sources for average transit mode speed
Source 1:
These are the average speeds of some common modes of transportation:
Commercial passenger aircraft: 547 to 575 miles per hour Private jet: 400 to 711 miles per hour Europe high-speed rail: 155 to 217 miles per hour Shinkansen (Japanese bullet trains): 150 to 200 miles per hour Modern cruise ship: 23 to 27 miles per hour Bicycle: 10 to 24 miles per hour Sailboat: 4.5 to 7 miles per hour Walking: 3 miles per hourSource 2:
Source 3:
https://wonderlearning.blog/real-average-speed-us-train-facts
When people think of passenger trains, they often envision swift, efficient travel. However, the operational reality for Amtrak, the primary passenger rail operator in the United States, is far more nuanced. While its locomotives are capable of impressive speeds, the average journey speed for most passengers is surprisingly modest, often hovering between 50 and 60 miles per hour, with long-distance routes averaging even less.
Ok, I’m USAsian, gonna be US-centric, and I’m gonna make some spitball roundings for easier math:
Average Actual Travel Speed:
Motorcycle: 50 mph
Car: 50 mph
Ferry: 25 mph
Train: 50 mph (long/medium distance)
Bus: 25 mph
Subway/Lightrail: 25 mph
Aircraft: 550 mph
Attempt at Conveying Math Proof
So we have:
D = deaths per billion miles. S = speed in miles per hour.
If we first solve for and find the time taken to travel one billion miles at speed S, we would do:
T = 1,000,000,000 / S
(T is time in hours)
What we want is D / T
D / T = D / ( 1,000,000,000 / S)
->
D / T = (D * S) / 1,000,000,000
So, that’s our rough conversion.
Using (D * S) / 1,000,000,000 , the OP graph becomes:
Deaths per hour of transit, by transit mode, for every billion miles travelled:
Motorcycles: 10,628.5
Car: 364
Ferry: 79.25
Train: 21.5
Subway/Lightrail: 6
Bus: 2.75
Aircraft: 38.5
So… thats basically deaths per billion hours spent using said transit mode.
Notes
You may have noticed that Aircraft are now more dangerous than Buses, Subways, med/long distance Trains, and are only ~2x safer than Ferries, not ~45x times safer, as they are with the OP metric.
One hour of Motorcycles transit, on the other hand, is now ~29x more deadly than an hour of car transit, ~276x more deadly than an hour of aircraft transit…
… as opposed to the OP metric, where a billion miles of motorcycle travel is again ~29x more deadly than a billion miles of car travel, but is ~3039x more deadly than a billion miles of aircraft travel.
tl;dr:
Basically, take travel speed into account, and aircraft become significantly more deadly per hour spent travelling in them, but the ratios between terrestrial and aquatic craft stay pretty similar, due to no one having yet proposed the ikranoplan as a mass transit solution.
(Historically minded readers may note the absence from these numbers of the ‘revolutionary’ hyperloop, as well as monorail, due to basically not fucking existing in real life.)
You may quibble about the actual average speeds of various transit modes as you please.
More Notes
Probably also worth noting that this is only deaths, not injuries, say, requiring hospitalization.
I imagine doing deaths + serious injuries would also change this graph significantly.
Also also, this doesn’t take into account road rage that does not directly involve the vehicle, I don’t think.
It does not include injuries or deaths on some form of public or mass transit where say, you get assaulted by another passenger, or something like that.
That could also tweak things, potentially, but I have no strong instinct about if it would really matter, or how… and, you could again do deaths vs deaths + serious injuries.
Number of cycles (departure to arrival) would be a pretty decent metric.
My thought exactly, walking per distance is probably the most deadly mode of transport
[X] Doubt
Walking is what we evolved to do. While being a pedestrian in certain parts of cities is dangerous, tons of walking is done away from vehicles.
Maybe depends on where you are living, but you quite probably have the wrong impression.
In my country (Germany), less than 3000 people die each year in traffic overall, while already an estimated 4000 pedestrians die while simply using stairs.
So, “Stairway to Heaven” gains a whole different layer of meaning, as it seems… :-)
Goddamnit.
Yet again, I have to say:
“And people think Germans have no sense of humor.”
… You got a chuckle out of me with that one, goddamnit, hahah!
I would expect that pedestrian walk far less distance than cars drive, so even a twofold difference in absolute numbers will disappear when normalised by distance. For instance there is a general advice of walking 10k paces every day which is about 7km, average car speed in the city should be around 30km/h, so even if we assume 30 minutes of commute every day (and this is too generous, I believe) it will be more than two times the distance people (should) walk
I don’t think people commonly refer to people using the stairs as being pedestrians.
There are stairs outdoors though, where they are more likely called pedestrians. Those stairs are also affected by the wearher, such as rain or snow
Thread started from ‘walking’, not from being a pedestrian, and stairs usually require exactly walking
stairs usually require exactly walking
Nah, you’re just not creative enough
I’m guilty of that, I admit, there are so many more ways to
get wasteduse stairs
Cool story bro.
My guess would be parachuting/skydiving/wing-gliding.
Parachuting/skydiving is incredibly low risk compared to the average person’s perception. The us had 9 deaths last year in 3.8 million skydives.
Wing suit usage has a similar number, IF you don’t include base jumpers, which you shouldn’t, because it’s fundamentally a very, very different sport that happens to use (almost) the same equipment. You wouldn’t include each bump in a nascar race as an accident and lump it into driving statistics, I would hope, nor do the same for people hiking in the woods and people fist fighting bears in the woods.
Considering I travel a mile or two, give or take, on each canopy flight when I jump, that’s 9 deaths in ~8 million miles. Wing suits have a much better glide ratio when flying, so that would change things up as well. I’m curious how that would hold up to walking. Using the other feller’s number of 4000 pedestrian deaths (on stairs) in germany, and estimating they walk 3 miles a day in a country of ~83 million, that’s 249 million miles, giving us 1.6x10^-5, while skydiving is 2.4x10^-6.
But really… who would consider those activities as a mode of transport anyway?
Huh, well I am apparently wrong then.
Thanks for the correction!
As to who would consider them a mode of transportation… … James Bond? Ethan Hunt?
lol, it was meant as a joke.
I’m on lemmy…
what’s a joke?
Uh, the US commuter train system?
deleted by creator
Well, nice knowing you all 😂
What country? Why is bicycle missing?
America, because nobody else has nearly the fatality rate per mile. SEA has more fatalities per capita, but that’s because they have 100x more bikes per capita.
The average american motorcyclist only rides as a hobby, they drive a car the rest of the time, and they’re either driving a racing bike or a 900 lb Harley. This isn’t a recipe for competent riding.
I guess because it’s insignificant or the graph only includes motored vehicles.
So according to this chart, any time I get in a car, I have a 1 in 137,362,637.36264 chance of dying?
That’s a lot better than than I thought. I’ll take those odds.
Every mile you drive you have a 1 in 137,362,637.36264 chance of dying. So if you drive to the sun and .474 of the way back you are guaranteed ti die (if you are bad at probability)
I guarantee you will die if you get in whatever car you have and make it even 1% of the way to the sun, regardless of how good you are at probability.
You don’t know what mods I have made to my car
Get in, loser, we’re going to the sun.
in the style of Fast and the Furious 9
I’d consider those driving motorcycles to be more prone to take risky maneuvers.
Wonder how the graph would change if they drove like regular commuters to the destinations (e.g. not weaving at traffic lights, not speeding for the thrill, no wheelies and other stunts).Weaving in at traffic ligths, aka lane splitting is significantly safer for the motorcyclist, since at a red traffic light the most probable accident is getting rear-ended, which is way deadlier for a motorcyclist.
Ok. Then weaving during flowing traffic like ski slalom.
No need for that, right?
I’d be interested to know if motor scooters/Vespas were lumped in with motorcycles. I’d wager a 99cc scooter has a lower mortality rate than a crotch rocket or a Harley.
