Re: YA Airline Memobitch...

"Carl Banks" <pavlovevidence@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:42d4670a-f59b-41c8-b051-db8c57e7b0e2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jun 18, 12:18 pm, The BorgMan <m...@xxxxxx> wrote:
Carl Banks <pavlovevide...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in news:d8822138-8b39-45cf-
bf51-422231604...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:



Since the 1970s (at least), airplanes have a better track record of
safety than trains. Realize that, whatever objection you have, the
statisticians have already taken it into account when determining
this.

Define "safety"

Since 1970 <300 people have died due to train accidents in the United
States.

1996-2005 deaths per 100 million passenger miles:

Passenger autos - .81
Buses - .04
Airlines - .05
Rail - .02

Oops... you're about twice as likely to die in an airplane as on a train.

You pulled those statistics out of your ass. How pathetic of you.

They are either dead wrong, or, I suspect (if you did get them from a
shady web site) misleading in a significant aspect.

Try this one (and I can produce lots more, if you want):

http://tinyurl.com/4fgeed

(The highlighted terms are a clue about what I suspect might be
misleading about the numbers you "cited"--if you even got them from
somewhrere and didn't just make them up.)

But wait, there's more. This reference is from the viewpoint of a
railroad engineer: wouldn't you agree that insofar as a railroad
engineer in biased it would be in favor of railroads?

Let's not even talk about what happens when you consider non-passenger
fatalities.

I will say, in fairness, that 9/11 skewed the statistics quite a bit
and today these stats would be a lot closer. The fact that a small
number of incidents can skew results so much should tell you how
useless these statistics are--this is why I said, quite deliberately,
that airplanes have a better track record, not that airplanes are
safer.

By the way, what field related to transportation do you have a
master's degree in again? What transportation-related job do you have
again? Oh yeah.


But if it makes you feel better, be my guest. All it means is you
suck at math. In any case, both forms of transportation are safe
enough that I wouldn't consider risk a factor in my decision.

I think you might be the one with the statistics problem.

I think your problem is an over-inflated sense of your own expertise.

Hail to the cocktail dinners
Hail to the ref made winners
To hell, to hell with Mecheatagain
Expertise in jest

Measuring that stat in terms of billions of passenger miles is faulty. On a
per trip basis, it looks much different.


.

Relevant Pages

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