I agree with the concept of comparing risk being the meaningful approach, but I disagree this is how you go about measuring risk. How many people are being injured/killed per million km or something is the type of metric. Air travel far exceeds those types of metrics vs other common modes of travel, yet is always the first one to be further focused on how bad it could potentially be.
I would argue at the performance of aviation safety, and the constant focus on how bad it could be, is exactly why aviation is safe. The day that we decide to stop focussing on what could go wrong, is the day that aviation stops being safe.
For example, if aircraft come within five nautical miles or I think it’s 1000 vertical feet, it’s considered a very serious incident. Not because anyone is in danger at five nautical miles or 1000 vertical feet, but because if you don’t draw the line there, and treat that barrier as seriously as if two aircraft had collided, then there isn’t really a barrier at all.
> > The day that we decide to stop focussing on what could go wrong, is the day that aviation stops being safe
A rebalancing vis a vis cars, buses, ships and trains is due. All the effort and man hours wasted trying to clear the last 0.01% in aviation would be better spent focusing on the other means of transportation, or other stuff that actually kills people period. The goal is not to die period. Not avoiding dying of aviation crash, and planes are about the last culprit as far as stuff that kills people worldwide on a yearly basis.
They are far behind dogs, actually my intuition says that they are behind a very calm and friendly breed such as German Shepherds, they are calm and friendly alright but as far as dog breeds worldwide for sure they kill > 200 people yearly.
I'd board a 95% plane if it means that once landed I could step on a 95% safe train or bus. Or a 95% safe city for that matter , Instead now the values are:
Plane : 99.9999999% safe
Train: 80% safe depending on the city and amount of crime in subway
Bus : 70% safe again depending on the city and amount of crime
City as a whole: Between crime, 6000 puounds vehicles speeding through the streets etc...I guess much less than 70%
The cognitive dissonance of people living in urban hells where crime is rampant and risk of death from assault , robbery or outright murder and then being afraid of flying tells you all you need to know. And no, it doesn't happen solely in Africa....San Francisco is a good example of that.
Naturally it's why it's so much safer, but the options for air travel safety most certainly aren't uniquely only between "as safe as possible" or "not safe at all". It should be no different than how we weigh safety regulation for any other mode of travel, and this kind of "either we do everything possible or we won't have safety" instead of focusing purely on what the measured target should be and how we currently measure against it is precisely the irrationality around it.
It's holding the global economy back actually who cares about the global economy...it's holding our personal happiness by making flight more expensive than it should be.
If I want to fly somewhere I already know that once I land there I face a considerable risk when I get in the metropolis. Risk of illness, violence, assault etc. Some metropolis are worse and some are better but the risk is always there.
The plane is the least of my problems.
The monopoly of aircraft production and the fact that planes can be used everywhere in the world is forcing us to withstand the same level of risk tolerance as the U.S. , and not even avg U.S citizen....for obvious reasons due to what happened theatrically some 25 years ago the risk tolerance of aviation is forced to be the same as Billionaire's Row , Central Park West , NYC, NY and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C.
On the other hand...trains get to do this and nobody cares because they are local not global:
Yes, of course that’s my point. We have to draw large safety margins around these systems, and then we have to treat incidents that breach those margins as seriously as we would an actual collision.
