I hope Genghis the Engineer won't mind me quoting one of his exellent replies in a thread which I seem to remember covering this. See Below:
In such cases, it's often best to actually play with some known statistics.
Let's start with motoring. There are, roughly, 3,500 deaths on British roads in a year. Out of a population of 60m Brits, it would probably be fair to say that everybody travels by car at-least once per year.
So, divide one by the other and we get a roughly 1 in 17,000 chance of any of us being killed in a road accident per year.
Now flying, we know that the average rate of fatal accidents in certified light aircraft is about 1 per 70,000 hours. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the average light aircraft pilot flies about 15 hours per year. So, again, divide one by the other, and a light aircraft pilot has a chance of being killed flying of about 1 in 4,700.
So, that means you have, on average, about 3½ times the chance of being killed during the flight as you do of being killed on the roads between flights.
However, based upon the same stats, let's say we all go near a road every other day on average - so the risk of being killed on that day comes out at about 1 in 313,000.
And again, the risk of dying on that day in which you chose to go flying (1 in 15) is about 1 in 70,000.
So, the risk of being killed on the way to or from the airport is about 4½ times less than it is of being killed during the flight - but clearly both risks are pretty darned low.
So there you go, lies, damned lies, and statistics.
G
Probably the best time to tell her you wish to buy a motorbike too!
