Somebody on a recent thread stated that in his/her view, see and avoid was a load of hogwash, and that collisions were primarily avoided by the statistical unlikelyhood of flight paths converging.
That got me thinking about the number of times that I've seen conflicting traffic, and had to manoever to avoid it (apart from joining/in the circuit). As far as I can recall, that has only happened to me on three occasions in my 170-odd hours (each of which was a conflicting glider as it happens)
There was also one occasion where I didn't see conflicting traffic approaching until the last second when it flashed past on a reciprical course about 100' to port same level (if you flew a Rockwell Commander near Goodwood last July it could have been you)
There's also a chance that I have also been in near-conflicts that i haven't seen at all
Assuming I have seen everything, on the basis of my observations we might expect to be in a conflict situation every 40 hours or so. However, the majority of my flying hours are in the S. West, with only 30-odd in SE bandit country, where given the increased traffic density, conflict chances are likely higher.
Anyone care to add their experiences to see if we can come up with an average?