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I supported Toymods
Location:
I renounced punctuation
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: Did you know???
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Sat, 22 May 2004 00:44
 
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| HSV_gal wrote on Fri, 21 May 2004 15:39 |
16. Travelling by air is the safest means of transport.
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Contentious issue.
It depends entirely on how "safety" is measured. Air travel safety is generally quoted in terms of deaths per flying hours. Planes travel for extended periods of time so this skews the result significantly in favor of air travel. When one looks at deaths per number of journeys the numbers swing right back.
Using the example of space travel (because it is easy to get figures), it is quoted as having a risk rate of 1 death per 10000 flying hours whilst commercial flight is generally quoted as having a rate of 1 in 37000 (figures from the New Scientist magazine). If you change the figure to death per passenger mile, space travel is the safest form of travel - astronauts travel millions of miles per trip. However, if you look at the deaths per journey of just the Space Shuttle program it comes to 14:113, roughly 1 death per 8 trips. Would you get in a car to get milk and paper if you knew you had a 1 in 8 chance of death?
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