Fears of Flying

Yesterday, some nut tried to blow up a plane in Detroit.  After this article appeared I saw many friends commenting on Facebook that incidents like these are the reason some of them don't fly.  I'd like to point out that such thinking is evidence of a total lack of understanding of any facts.  Most of these people get in and out of their cars every day and think nothing of it, without questioning that fact that riding in a car is the single most dangerous thing most of them will do in their lifetimes.  I'd like to point out some facts.

Considering the fact that every day 115 people die in car accidents in the US alone and no one has died on an airliner in quite a while, flying on an airliner is still safer than driving to work.  Cars are so dangerous that they are the leading killer of older teens (38%), meaning, your teenager is safer in the army in Kabul than in a car in Idaho.  In fact, care are SO dangerous that for each of us, our lifetime risk of dying in our car is 1:84 exceeded only by stroke, cancer, and heart disease.  However, we have to remember that cancer, stroke, and heart disease are NATURALLY occurring which means that they occur despite anything that we do so they are not comparable to car/airplane travel and so must be taken out of the comparison.  In fact, natural causes must be taken out in their entirety because we don't control them, we can only influence them to a limited degree.

So here are the things most likely to kill you in the US, by death rate (according to the US Census):

1.  Automobile accidents 15.1
2. Drug OD 12.8
   
3. Suicide 11.1 
4. Guns 10.3
   
5. Accidental poisoning 9.2

Airline accidents are so small in number that the Census doesn't even bother accounting for them individually.  NOTHING is more dangerous an activity than cars.