xkcd #2940: Modes of Transportation ( sh.itjust.works )

xkcd : Modes of Transportation

https://xkcd.com/2940

Explain xkcd #2940

Title Text:

My bold criticism might anger the hot air balloon people, which would be a real concern if any of them lived along a very narrow line directly upwind of me.

alt-text:

A chart that categorizes various modes of transportation based on their practicality and danger level:

Zone of Practicality:

  • Trains
  • Airliners
  • Boats
  • Walking
  • Cars
  • Scooters
  • Bicycles

Zone of Specialty and Recreational Vehicles:

  • Motorcycles
  • Helicopters
  • Light aircraft
  • Go karts
  • Skateboards
  • Rollerblades
  • Skis
  • Unicycles
  • Sleds
  • Bumper cars

?????:

  • Hot air balloons

“Hot air balloons are the optimal mode of transportation, if your optimization algorithm has a sign error.”

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

The fact that airplane travel is safer than cars is a myth invented to promote airplane travel.
Well, it is not fully a myth, but to get to that result they measure per mile, and that greatly favor airplane travel.
If you instead measure how likely you are to die on your next trip, then the dangers of airplane travel will significantly exceed car travel and other means of transportation.

Electricblush , (edited )
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

This is complete horseshit.

Are you aware how many flights take place every day?

Vs

How many fatal accidents pr flight?

The fact is that almost every time a fatal accident happens in a (commercial) plane anywhere in the world, you hear about it. Because if a plane crashes a lot of people die in one dramatic (and rare) event.

Fatal car accidents litteraly happen every minute of every day. Almost none of them go on the news. (Cause reporting them all would be impossible).

Let me also post some sources, since you did not:

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/

https://www.icao.int/safety/iStars/Pages/Accident-Statistics.aspx/
Air traffic: (3187 fatalities over 10 years)

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries
(1.19 million people every year die on the road)

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

I think you underestimate the number of trips per car per day. Most people will take more trips by car per month than they will fly for their lifetime.
In Sweden , a country of 10 million, we have about 150 people killed per year from car accidents, yet most adults travel by car daily.
That is millions of trips per day, and only half a death.

Electricblush , (edited )
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

Sweden , a country of 10 million, we have about 150 people killed per year from car accidents

Yes, and how many die every year from plane crashes in sweden?

If we take a relatively big plane (450 passengers) as an example. One has to fall out of the sky every 3. Years to match the car accident number...

3186 deaths over 10 years
VS
1.19 million every year.

(This is globally. Sweden and Norway(where i live) will naturally have pretty radically lower numbers then globally when it comes to road safety.)

But look at that air travel number again: 3186. Over 10 years. Globally.
Commercial Air travel is fucking safe.
Its horrible for the climate. But its safe.

Whatever way you slice those numbers it comes up air travel i safer.
Feel free to find actual statistics that contradict me. :)

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

Just check the stats
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons

Electricblush ,
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

From your own source:

Since 1997, the number of fatal air accidents has been no more than 1 for every 2,000,000,000 person-miles[c] flown,[citation needed] and thus is one of the safest modes of transportation when measured by distance traveled.

So I guess this is the point you are trying to make?

Turun ,

You can argue that "per person miles" is a better metric, but that is completely orthogonal to their initial claim.

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

Well, what I want to know is "Am I going to die today?". The distance traveled is irrelevant to answer that question. The only reason to add that to the equation is to make air travel look safer.

Electricblush , (edited )
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

I honestly think you are showing a fundamental lack of understanding of statistics.

"Per trip" is a horribly poor metric. Because there is a fundamental difference between a trip down to the store, or a cross country trip, even with a car. Also it would be extremely dependent on where you are going, where you live etc. etc.

For the discussion to have any meaning you have to abstract it to a metric that makes sense for all people, or else you would have to also figure in where you usually travel, how good a driver you are etc etc etc.

At that point its a completely meaningless semantics exercise because for instance taking a plane to work is not realy valid for me since i live in the same city as i work... Or lets do it the other way around: If i need to go to Spain tomorrow, its safer for me to fly then to drive there. (This is based on your own sources)

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

But per mile measurement for flying implies that every mile of a flight is equally dangerous, but the truth I'd that it is most dangerous to start or land, which is a per trip occurrence. The take off and landing is equally dangerous whether you travel a long or short distance in between.

Electricblush ,
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, and?

The point of distance is to take it into aggregate, for both modes of transport.

This is in fact the exact point i am making.

Per trip measurement implies that every trip (regardles of time or distance traveled) has equal danger.

NoRodent ,
@NoRodent@lemmy.world avatar

It's still a terrible metric to compare the safety of modes of transport and the Wiki article just below the table explains it well:

The first two statistics are computed for typical travels by their respective forms of transport, so they cannot be used directly to compare risks related to different forms of transport in a particular travel "from A to B". For example, these statistics suggest that a typical flight from Los Angeles to New York would carry a larger risk factor than a typical car travel from home to office. However, car travel from Los Angeles to New York would not be typical; that journey would be as long as several dozen typical car travels, and thus the associated risk would be larger as well. Because the journey would take a much longer time, the overall risk associated with making this journey by car would be higher than making the same journey by air, even if each individual hour of car travel is less risky than each hour of flight.

If people made similar trips with cars as they do with airplanes, cars would lose in the per journey metric big time.

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

Of course cars would loose if you tried to use it to travel across the Atlantic...

Electricblush ,
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

If you are traveling across the Atlantic to get from Los Angeles to New York i would argue that you are traveling the wrong way...

Electricblush ,
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

Very interesting 🤔

And your point about metrics is pretty spot on.

In the end it becomes an exercise in trying to find the metric that best supports your argument.

We have also been jumping around a bit on geographical limitations. And in for instance Scandinavia, the original premise might be closer to real due to better road safety.

I think implying some sort of myth or ruse is missing the mark hard on this subject.

NoRodent , (edited )
@NoRodent@lemmy.world avatar

I think I get what the guy is trying to say. Per journey, air travel might indeed end up being statistically less safe (how many times a year an average person flies vs. how many times they drive their car) but of course the question is whether that particular metric is any useful. Surely if you replaced all airplane trips with car trips, more people would die.

This Wikipedia article contains a table, which if true, confirms it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons

If you sort it by Journeys, you'll find that 117 people die in an airplane per billion journeys, while only 40 die per billion car journeys. But the article points out exactly what I said before.

Funny example that illustrates how important the choice of metric is, is the Space Shuttle which is statistically incredibly unsafe per journey (17,000,000 deaths per billion journeys) and even per hours (only skydiving coming first by a small margin) but is safer than bicycles and only twice less safe than cars per distance traveled because of those insane distances it covers in orbit.

Edit: Not that I do not know whether the table counts only commercial flights or all airplane/helicopter journeys. And also the statistics is pretty old (1990-2000) and only covers the UK, so you may still be right and commercial air travel in the last decade might be safer per journey than cars globally. Can't find a better statistics.

brbposting OP ,

What’s the benefit of measuring per trip versus per passenger mile?

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

Per trip is more in line with how people think about danger. Like, am I going to die on this trip?

Electricblush ,
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

I would think real statistics would be more interesting then peoples emotions when talking about what is actually dangerous.

snaggen ,
@snaggen@programming.dev avatar

And the question is am I going to die on this trip? And there the real statistics are pretty clear, cars are safer.

Electricblush , (edited )
@Electricblush@lemmy.world avatar

I sort of answered this somewhere else but i will reiterate.

Using this metric you are sort of assuming all trips are equal.
No matter how short, or long you are assuming the base danger is the same. This means that driving 100 meters is just as dangerous as driving for a whole day. (See what the problem is?)

And if we look at this premise in isolation: "Am i going to die on this trip"?
If the trip is 100m, then a plane is probably out of the question either way.
And if the trip is to a different country.. then hey, look at that, the sources you cited come into relevance (where pr distance a plane is safer) and you would have to calculate the danger of completing that specific trip in a car VS flying that distance with a plane.

You are generalizing on terms that make no sense, since "total number of trips" in cars include all manner of different scenarios of some times extremely varying degree of danger. So in order to have data that is statistically relevant and in any form comparable you have to choose a different metric.

So to answer the question again "Am i going to die on this trip?" or to extrapolate "should i drive or fly on this trip", if you cant use generic statistics, the answer will be "it depends. You have to calculate danger for the trip specifically".

Dayroom7485 ,

The placement of „Skis“ in this will trigger every Scandinavian I know. Should definitely be in the top left.

brbposting OP ,

Trust you on that but will ski across the pond to check and be sure

Viking_Hippie ,

I'm from the Scandinavian country WITHOUT mountains and with less snow and am as such not triggered.

You don't know me, though, so I guess your statement might still hold true 😁

Hagdos ,

Scandinavia is their zone of specialty

khapyman ,

Even us close to Scandinavia get triggered. There aren't that many practical ways to get around at winter. Skis work when feet don't.

Hamartiogonic ,
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

Unicycles are clearly more dangerous than skis.

howrar ,

In Canada too. It's not that common, but also not out of place to see people doing their regular commute on skis.

hobovision ,

Cross country ski vs downhill ski

DarkCloud ,

The Dyke Delta doesn't fit anywhere on this graph.

brbposting OP ,

an American homebuilt aircraft designed in the United States in the 1960s and marketed for amateur construction.

Doesn’t get safer than that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyke_Delta

DarkCloud ,

Hmmm, Boeing vs me being paranoid about my own safety.

schnurrito ,

Hot air balloons are a very useful mode of transportation if your goal is to take aerial photographs from them (although admittedly nowadays you could also use drones). It's always a question of what you want to achieve.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Aerial_photographs_from_hot_air_balloons

brbposting OP ,

Interesting, that's the closest thing I've seen to a personal photo album on Wikipedia.

schnurrito ,

It is Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia. That is where most of the images used on Wikipedia and other WMF projects are stored. It has categories for nearly everything under the sun.

notaviking ,

Are hot air balloon not like super safe, last accident I think was a guy that made his own DIY hot air balloon but before that it has been relatively safe. I think America has only seen like less than 800 deaths total.

If the comic put in zeppelins...

SpaceNoodle ,

You'd need to normalize the number to deaths per balloon ride.

ealoe ,

Only three people died last year playing Russian Roulette, must be pretty safe! /s

Zidane ,

It took me too fucking long to figure out what an "airuner" was...

davidgro ,

Keming.

Hamartiogonic ,
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

relevant xkcd

ouch ,

Motorcycles should be replaced with EUCs.

misterundercoat ,

Where would horses go?

Draegur ,

and i suppose blimps and dirigibles are further to the right and lower than the graph displays u_u

my_hat_stinks ,

Bicycles more dangerous than cars? I guess I must have missed all the stories about people being run over by bikes.

Armok_the_bunny ,

I think it means more dangerous to use, not more dangerous to be around.

slipperydippery , (edited )

Unless you have pepper infrastructure.

Edit: sorry that's not true, see this from the Netherlands:

Voor het vierde jaar op rij kwamen meer fietsers (270; 39%) dan inzittenden van personenauto's (194; 28%) om in het verkeer. De meeste doden in het verkeer vallen onder ouderen: in 2023 waren 375 (55%) verkeersdoden 60 jaar of ouder. Kinderen (0-14 jaar) komen juist relatief weinig om in het verkeer; in 2023 waren dat er 20 (3%).
Het risico om te overlijden in het verkeer, het aantal verkeersdoden per afgelegde kilometer, is het ho ogst voor gemotoriseerde tweewielers. Het risico voor brom- en snorfietsers en motorrijders is ongeveer dertig keer zo hoog als het risico voor inzittenden van een personenauto. Voor fietsers en voetgangers is het overlijdensrisico respectievelijk acht en zes keer zo hoog als voor auto-inzittenden, in de periode 2012-2021.

Translation:

For the fourth year in a row, more cyclists (270; 39%) than passenger car occupants (194; 28%) were killed in traffic. Most traffic fatalities occur among the elderly: in 2023, 375 (55%) traffic fatalities were 60 years or older. Children (0-14 years) are relatively rarely killed in traffic; in 2023 there were 20 (3%). 
The risk of dying in traffic, the number of traffic fatalities per kilometer travelled, is highest for motorized two-wheelers. The risk for moped and light-moped riders and motorcyclists is approximately thirty times higher than the risk for passenger car occupants. For cyclists and pedestrians, the risk of death is eight and six times higher, respectively, than for car occupants, in the period 2012-2021.

https://swov.nl/nl/factsheet/verkeersdoden-nederland

brbposting OP ,

Bike on pedestrian violence is an epidemic!

I see what you mean about net safety and not just thinking about the operator of the mode of transport. Will look into this later.

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/78979f10-20d3-4f59-8b02-324e595482d9.jpeg

Zehzin ,
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

Also, bikes more dangerous than unicycles?

tobogganablaze ,

I've never seen some ride a unicyle on a road in regular traffic, which is where most of the danger of riding a bike is.

NoRodent ,
@NoRodent@lemmy.world avatar

Do those electric unicycles without a seat count? Because those are weaving through traffic at insane speeds all the time where I live.

tobogganablaze ,

Oh wow, never seen one of these. No idea.

Mighty ,
@Mighty@lemmy.world avatar

why are scooters practical and motorcycles not? I only ride a motorcycle. any distance too long for bycicle or inconvenient with public transit, I take my motorcycle.

Michal ,

Looks like only because they're presented as dangerous. Convenience - wise they're still the same. Practicality seems to be defined here as a balance between danger and convenience.

Baguette ,

The graph does say its practical, its just also more dangerous than a scooter

Edit: oh you meant in the zone of practicality, not the y axis convenient for travel. The zoning i feel is pretty subjective

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • [email protected]
  • All magazines
    •