I came across an interesting graph in a science magazine which showed the most fatal transport modes according to UN data. The original measurement was in passenger deaths per billion kilometres but I didn't find that very useful so I've converted the stats into the average distance travelled by each before YOU DIE.

10,300,000 km - motorcycle
27,600,000 km - walking
29,700,000 km - cycling
384,000,000 km - car
1,670,000,000 km - van
3,340,000,000 km - boat
5,000,000,000 km - bus
10,000,000,000 km - rail
15,000,000,000 km - plane

So, in short we should all fly everywhere to avoid death. That said it's impressive the comparison of motorcycle to car, or cycling to car for that matter.

wow.

Tama wrote: so I've converted the stats into the average distance travelled by each before YOU DIE.

Your method is flawed.

E Dogg Capizzle wrote:

Tama wrote: so I've converted the stats into the average distance travelled by each before YOU DIE.

Your method is flawed.

Shut up walker - You die second!

For the bean counters out there "Deaths per billion passenger kilometres" are:
96.9 motorcycles
36.2 walking
33.6 cycling
2.6 car
0.6 van
0.3 boat
0.2 bus
0.1 rail
<0.1 plane

Flying Train FTW!

So whats killing all the pedestrians?
Are they bumping into each other?
Are they falling into manholes while texting?

Or is there some overlap between categories here?

znomit wrote:So whats killing all the pedestrians?

I am

Also cars and trucks that hit them.

znomit wrote:So whats killing all the pedestrians?

Bunnies.

At the risk of jixing myself I have a long way to go before clocking up 29,700,000 km, in fact I am sure that the wife will kill me long before then ....

Tama wrote:

E Dogg Capizzle wrote:

Tama wrote: so I've converted the stats into the average distance travelled by each before YOU DIE.

Your method is flawed.

Shut up walker - You die second!

For the bean counters out there "Deaths per billion passenger kilometres" are:
96.9 motorcycles
36.2 walking
33.6 cycling
2.6 car
0.6 van
0.3 boat
0.2 bus
0.1 rail
<0.1 plane

Am I correct in interpreting this as 'for every billion kms travelled by people in x mode of transport y will die'?

I love flawed risk stats.
Maybe something more relevant is per hours travelled. people perceive time, not kilometres, so this allows us to get a better fix on the risk. It also accounts for average speeds of travel.

It looks like this (mode, assumed average speed, deaths per 1 million hours):
motorbike 40 38.8
cycle 10 3.4
walk 4 1.5
car 40 1.0
air 700 0.7
van 40 0.2
bus 30 0.06
boat 15 0.05

I've used 1 million, as this is a number we can relate to. Note how the risk from driving suddenly becomes more significant compared to cycling and walking.

Now. The real risk. If you cycle for an hour a day, every day of the week, from age 15 to 65, you cycle for 18200 hours in your lifetime. Your actual risk of dying on your bike in your lifetime is 0.001.

I'd say that was insignificant.

wgtngrl wrote:

Tama wrote:

E Dogg Capizzle wrote:

Tama wrote: so I've converted the stats into the average distance travelled by each before YOU DIE.

Your method is flawed.

Shut up walker - You die second!

For the bean counters out there "Deaths per billion passenger kilometres" are:
96.9 motorcycles
36.2 walking
33.6 cycling
2.6 car
0.6 van
0.3 boat
0.2 bus
0.1 rail
<0.1 plane

Am I correct in interpreting this as 'for every billion kms travelled by people in x mode of transport y will die'?

Yes - for example; For every billion kms people travel on motorcycles around 97 motorcyclists die. Or, for every 10.3 million kms people travel on motorcycles one motorcyclist will die.

honeymonster wrote:I love flawed risk stats.

Tee hee hee

The graph was in an article about perceived risks versus actual risks. After 9/11 Americans stopped flying and started driving more as they perceived flying to be more dangerous. Net effect; the road toll rose by around 1,600 - six times the number of people who died in the hijacked planes.

It's in issue 2671 of New Scientist - 30th August 2008 if you're interested: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 ... tions.html

So as the leaned Honeymonster said:
Now. The real risk. If you cycle for an hour a day, every day of the week, from age 15 to 65, you cycle for 18200 hours in your lifetime. Your actual risk of dying on your bike in your lifetime is 0.001.


So this means if groups of a thousand people cycled for an hour a day, every day of the week, from age 15 to 65, only one of them on average per group would snuff it cycling. And even then, the cause of their demise may be a car !!

honeymonster wrote:Now. The real risk. If you cycle for an hour a day, every day of the week, from age 15 to 65, you cycle for 18200 hours in your lifetime. Your actual risk of dying on your bike in your lifetime is 0.001.

I'd say that was insignificant.

Here's an interesting comparison:

assuming you play lotto (10 lines) each of those weeks, that's 10 x 52 x 50 = 26000 lines of lotto.

P(1st div each week) = 10/3838380

P(1st div at least once) = 1 - P(1st div never) = 1 - (1 - 10/3838380)^26000 = 0.065

So, we're 65 times more likely to win 1st div lotto than to die on our bike... (under the various assumptions made...).

Actually, I'm surprised at how large the lotto probability is...

Ha! Not big enough for me to throw away my money on Lotto

If interested, I can recommend this book as a great primer on risk and media and stuff. Probably the best book I've read recently: http://scienceline.org/2008/10/15/policy-olson-science-of-fear-book-review/