You’re 17 times more likely to die traveling the same distance in a car than on a train
You’re 17 times more likely to die traveling the same distance in a car than on a train
Reminder: 80 people die in car accidents every day.
It’s an older article, but the point stands!
Bike not listed.
I’m invincible!
Depends on where you ride your bicycle.
In the US, bicycle deaths are at 79 per billion miles src. In the Netherlands, this is 17 per billion miles. src.
Note that the Dutch take much more risk when cycling. It is normal for young kids to cycle to school and sports unsupervised. Bicycle helmets are very rare. Despite that "reckless behavior", cycling is quite safe here. Having dedicated cycling infrastructure really helps.
Before I make this statement, yeah, I know where I am.
Deaths per billion passenger-miles
All of these fatality rates, for all of these forms of transportation, are vanishingly small. Comparing the rates of one vehicle to another with phrases like "17 times more likely" while ignoring the "billion passenger-miles" scale is misleading.
In order to present these in a more complete way, the odds of dying on each of these vehicles is:
- Motorcycle: 0.000000213
- Car: 0.0000000073
- Ferry: 0.0000000032
- Amtrak: 0.00000000043
- Airplane: 0.00000000007
That is per mile, which is usually not the distance humans limit themselves to in their lives. Assuming you travel a million miles in your life, you do have a 20% chance of dying if exclusively using a motorcycle, which I would consider relevant. The change from car to train already far less so.
Fair and excellent points.
Assuming 20,000 miles traveled per year, it would take 50 years to reach 1,000,000 miles. So let's lay out the % odds of fatality over 50 years, at 20,000 miles per year, if using each of these means exclusively:
- Motorcycle: 21.3%
- Car: 7.3%
- Ferry 3.2%
- Amtrak: 0.43%
- Airplane: 0.07%
You're also getting at another important point: it is difficult for people to really comprehend very large or very small numbers. With that in mind, if we divide each of those percentages by 50, we should come up with the odds of dying in a given vehicle per year, again, given a 20,000 mile per year usage and exclusive use of one vehicle type:
- Motorcycle: 0.426%
- Car: 0.146%
- Ferry: 0.064%
- Amtrak: 0.0086%
- Airplane: 0.0014%
Of these, only motorcycle and car are anywhere near significant, and they're still really unlikely. The remaining three still are small enough to be essentially incomprehenisble. (And who travels 20,000 miles a year on a ferry, anyway?)
Another bit I would like to note is that the comparison posed was between car and train, based on safety. Why was airplane not mentioned? It's far and away the least likely to kill you.
Of course airplane wasn't mentioned. Airplanes are not appropriate solutions to many kinds of necessary travel, and airplanes in general have a worse reputation for their environmental effects. Trains are not solutions to many kinds of necessary travel, either, at least not in the current landscape of travel options available to very many people in the United States.
Again, I know exactly where I'm commenting. I definitely think that there should be way more public transportation options available. I think the number of individual-operated vehicle miles can and should be reduced. I think the kinds of individual-operated vehicles should be addressed more sensibly (we don't get to have the small pickups of the 80s and 90s because of unintended consequences of CAFE standards driving manufacturers to create larger and larger "light" trucks, for example).
Pointing out that "cars are 17 times more likely to kill you than trains!" does not serve the purpose of making a better world through transportation reform.
But where i live i need a car to travel to the train...
And the train doesnt go where i need to go.
i think this community sees that as one of the negative consequences of a high car dependent place.
Precisely the issue of car dependent infrastructure
Your math is not correct on this. You have stated the rate of deaths per mile, not the probability of not dying per mile, e.g. if 2 people died per mile, then the probability of dying per mile is not 200%.
I believe this should follow a Poisson distribution, i.e.f(k;m) = ((rm)^k * e^-(rm)) / k!, where k is the number of deaths, m is the miles traveled, and r is the deaths per mile. Then, the probability of dying after traveling m miles is 1 - f(0;m), i.e. the probability of no deaths occurring. Thus, the probability of dying when traveling 10^6 miles is 1 - e^-(7.3 / 10^9 * 10^6) = 0.727%.
If you include non-fatal injuries, cars would be like way, WAY more dangerous than a train or plane.
Better yet, include people outside of a car who's been injured or killed by one, and those numbers would be astronomical.
Higher yes. Astronomical? I dunno.
Well, around 40,000 people die because of motor vehicles in the US per year.
But the national safety council reported over 5.4 million "medically consulted injuries".
That's a lot of extra people that could be added to those stats.
I can't even imagine the global economic impact of car related death and injuries. In the US, it's around a trillion dollars a year. Imagine if that money was spent on safer forms of transportation.
i want to build a fuck_planes community, but i doubt anyone will get..on board. cars are less of an issue (just demand smaller cars, high wheelers need to be abolished, luckely they aren't common in europe). planes are the bigger threat for now. we need to get our priorities straight.
For short haul flights where a train is preferable, or private iets, absolutely. However airplanes are still the most efficient way to travel long distances. Abolishing airplanes altogether is one of the least thought out takes I've ever heard.
Abolishing airplanes altogether is one of the least thought out takes I've ever heard.
yea, not altogether. i commented on this before https://lemm.ee/comment/2119584 : air travel should be limited only to transcontinental travel or cross country in Asia's case (since its a bunch of isles at that point) efficient? ofc, moneywise and timewise. environemently friendly? dont think so. thoses tons of burned kerosene would translate into tons of co2 released, in a single flight. no wonder our globe feels like a microwaved cookware. fast and affordable have a cost.
i drew the analogy from the game warcraft: u only need to pay for a zeppelin when u want to reach somewhere that couldn't be accessed by land, in a map. we just live in a bigger map.
Not in the US. You have to actually have access to trains to be able to die while riding them.
If only I could take the train to get groceries
the doomer in me: oh shit i need to drive more
As someone who drove his motorcycle today instead of taking the train, I'm getting a kick out of this. Costco runs on the train are quite difficult. About 4 times a year, I go to Costco and the extra storage on my bike means I can make those trips at that frequency rather than more often. Most of my other shopping is done on foot or, if I need something from a specific shop, by train. Some things (like large blocks of cheese) I can only really find at Costco here in Japan. Same with American-style bacon.
Speed limits are definitely lower here, and our trains are better than Amtrack, so I think both of those number will be lower.
The idea of specifically choosing motorcycle as your Costco mode of transport is hilarious, but I suppose panniers beat lugging a bunch of bags on a train. Also, my brother did a foreign exchange program in Okinawa when he was in high school, and I'm often reminded of how he said his host-father pronounced Costco as "Co-su-tu-co".
I don't own a car and renting one for the day is stupidly expensive. I'd also have to drive a car on Tokyo streets and I'm not a fan of that at all, heh. With a bike, at least it's not as claustrophobic.
As a North American…. Taking a motorcycle to Costco because of its storage seems crazy.
Also taking a train anywhere near a Costco.
I don't understand this community. You despise cars and anyone who drives them? Sorry I don't live in the middle of the city with good public transport options, so what the fuck do you expect me to do? Bike 30 miles to work?
Hi and welcome! Our take is a little bit more nuanced than that, if I may be bold enough to speak on behalf of the community. We understand that most people don't have a choice but to own and drive a car for most of your everyday needs: here we call that car dependence. The sane among us recognize that most people didn't necessarily choose this way of living, and most acknowledge that those who enjoy it have that right.
We do recognize that car dependence has a lot of negative impacts on society: from climate to economy to health to geopolitics and more (there's whole books on the subject). And we're a growing group of people who strive to build a better world than the one we inherited. What that means is taking action to reduce car dependence and instead promote alternatives like public transit, walkable towns, and cities built for people (not for cars). It's a multifacted issue, far beyond the (incendiary) name implies. This discussion is about trains and how safe they are compared to cars, which kill over 50 thousand people a year in the United States, and injure millions more. It doesn't have to be this way.
Wouldn't it be great to not have to drive 30 miles each day? That's the kind of future we're trying to build for the growing number of people who desire that. Accomplishing that is difficult and takes time and political action that many in this community are trying to build.
Not build your life around a mode of transport that has massive negative externalities?
Or bike to the next public transport. If there is none, you should get loud, as you are not being given the freedom to choose your mode of transport. You are being forced to use a car, which requires you to be of age and somewhat ablebodied. If you lose your eyesight, you will be stranded, as the only way to get around is by car. If you are too old to drive, what will you do? How do children get around on their own where you live? How many hours are you working per week, just so you can afford a car to get to work?
It's another vector for societal division. They even have little made up slurs and everything! It's just another psyop to make us hate each other more. The folks here are either sipping their boxed wine while giggling at the funny car memes and coded banter, thinking they are so clever with their stale attempt at dated, hyper-agressive circlejerk humor, OR they are actually, functionally disabled and cannot be trusted to tell fiction from reality. Either way, best to block and move on. There is nothing of value here. Unless you like ant farms.
The data is probably better now
Really depends for a motorcycle. I'd rather one over long distance highway than a car, but rather a car over short distance urban routes.
I may just be dumb.
But are you trying to say, you'd rather use a motorcycle for long distance and a car for short distance?
As someone who rides, that's like the super opposite of what I do.
On an ADV? Hell yeah. On a street-sports? Hell no.
Depends on the bike, I think. Most cars on the road today are well-suited enough for both short and long distance travel. While there are surely some motorcycles that are good for both, there are a much higher proprotion that are better for a specific type of riding, to the relative exclusion of others - whether that be for reasons of ergonomics, curb weight, cargo capacity, handling and suspension comfort, etc.
I dunno. Highway hypnosis is much more likely on well, a highway. Folks will be paying a lot less attention in that scenario. Hell, even you will likely be paying a lot less attention. It's just how humans work. Monotony breeds complacency. I understand your reasoning for think the motorcycle is safer on the highway than in a heavily traffic urban area. But I do not understand why you think it's safer than the car on a highway.
Especially compared against new cars with adaptive cruise that can and will stop automatically.
And people are afraid of airplanes
And for evolutionary, not logical reasoning. Humans are naturally afraid of heights. If you fall, you die. Stay away from heights. Logically, you are more likely to die on the way to the airport than in the plane.
To be fair you should be afraid of small planes