Thats why this statistic is accurate, thats why this statistic is used by insurers but most importantly, thats why the aviation industry doesn't want to use it.
Whose insurers use these stats though? If it is insurers concerned with how many people will die flying then yes, it is a useful stat since it accurately reflects that per journey more people will die flying than driving...we agree on that.
The statistic is already balanced. What you are doing is advocating the importance of one aspect (amount that die in an accident) but completely ignoring that aviation deaths are spread over a few thousand aircraft compared to car deaths being spread out over hundreds of millions of cars
I don't really see how that is relevant, since we are comparing deaths per journey why does the total number of vehicles/planes in the system have anything to do with it...by using the 'billion per journey' stat we discount that fact.
I think we may have to agree to disagree on this one but I'll try to make my point one more time...
As an individual when I get on a plane I'm not concerned as such with how many people will or have died flying per journey I'm interesting in how many times the plane will crash per billion journey because that is what is important to whether I die or not.
Lets say for arguments sake all airliners carry ten people per flight, and they crash at a rate of one for every ten flights...that means I have a one in ten chance of dying when I go flying.
Then lets say airliners grow a bit and now carry 100 people per flight yet still crash at the same rate. Therefore my chance of dying is still the same since I will still die on my tenth flight.
THEREFORE, the deaths per journey HAS gone up but my personal risk of dying is the same. I'm not trying to prove your stat is wrong, just that it does not represent personal risk when comparing cars and planes.