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.
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.
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 hour
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.
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… :-)
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
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?
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:
https://www.gigacalculator.com/articles/what-is-the-average-speed-of-different-modes-of-transportation/
Source 2:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Average-travel-speeds-in-each-survey-year-and-standardized-mode-speed_tbl1_338604360
Source 3:
https://wonderlearning.blog/real-average-speed-us-train-facts
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
Nah, you’re just not creative enough
I’m guilty of that, I admit, there are so many more ways to
get wasteduse stairsCool 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?
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