Very interesting argument. My gut feeling is to try to say you're wrong, Whirly, as others have, but I wonder if I'm just trying to defend something from an emotional point of view while refusing to look at the figures you've given?
However, I really don't believe that you can compare the two quite as simplisticly as you have. Most people don't drive for recreation, they spend very little time thinking about or reading about driving when they're not doing it, and very little time practicing it unless they have to.
Compare this to flying. The Private Flying forum is one of the busiest on PPRuNe, and probably the one where we actually talk about flying (rather than pay+conditions, or industry take-overs, or how to pass exams) the most. We fly because we love to fly - we love talking about flying, we think about flying when we're on the bus (or driving down the motorway for that matter
) and we make time in our busy week to go flying when there's really no need to. When we get to the airfield, we will spend an hour or two doing circuits, or stalls (how many qualified drivers will spend even 10 minutes practicing reversing round a corner, or emergency stops?)
Without looking at accident figures, I don't think it's possible to say whether flying or driving is safer based solely on the amount of time we spend doing it. It's just not that simple.
FFF
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