GA Flying...is it safe ?!

[abgd]

Regarding the idea that flying gives you control over your fate, but driving doesn't because of all the other numpties on the road, I thought I'd post a graph showing the relationship between age and fatal accidents:

From a study cited in:
http://http://transportation.njit.edu/nctip/final_report/Mature_Driver.htm

Figure 1:



The fact that there's such a marked effect of age on driver safety implies that the way that different drivers drive has a very strong influence on their risk of having a fatal accident.

In other words, you have considerable say in your fate in driving accidents, as well as flying accidents. I can imagine that this is less the case for motorcyclists though.

[Contacttower]

Completely agree with the above, one can obviously do a huge amount with one's driving to decrease the risk. Once one has become a sensible and experienced driver though there still is that element of uncertainty about other people's behaviour that can never be completely eliminated and I think that element remains larger in driving than it does in flying.

[dont overfil]

abgd,
Am I reading your graph correctly?

I would imagine the 25-65 age group would on average drive a lot more miles than a 16 or 80 year old.

Does that in real terms mean the youngest and oldest drivers are even more likely to die than the scale of the graph suggests?

D.O.

[abgd]

Am I reading your graph correctly?

No, the fact that different age groups drive different numbers of miles is already taken into account. You may well argue how well it was taken into account. I'll confess I haven't read the original source in enough detail to hold an opinion, however I think it's fairly well recognised that young men are a very high risk group and their insurance premiums reflect this.

I think that element remains larger in driving than it does in flying.

In relative or absolute terms? I would agree potentially in relative terms, but not in absolute terms.

[peterh337]

I think that graph is a lot of dodgy stats (not entirely but largely).

Many people drive in a manner where they attract and induce accidents but since they do not technically cause them, they get away scot free.

I'd imagine teenagers crash a lot due to a lack of experience, not knowing how to drive defensively, and occassionally due to recklessness inherent in youth

But old people get into a lot of accidents because they tend to drive crappily, often excessively slowly, but people tend to drive into them instead.

Also a lot of miles get driven by various groups of commercial travellers but inevitably many end up doing a lot of their miles on the open road.

Similarly, in flying, you might have the following very different situations:

- short trips in good weather, VFR
- long trips in good weather, VFR
- long trips in good weather, IFR

I'd say the last one is safest per mile. But it won't be the safest per trip, not least because those are mostly high-hour pilots.