"Flamen" wrote a blog on Dioenglish about the safety of flying a plane or riding in a car.  This blog started as a response to his/her note.  I rode a train for the first time in my life this year.  I loved it.  I rode from Shanghai to Shenyang and back.  Flamen described it well.   Planes charge outrageous prices for internet service, if it is available at all, and charge fees for even bringing luggage sometimes.  Riding a train was much more comfortable, with wider seats and very wide aisles, etc.

I read a article a few years ago about the jobs that are most likely to kill you.  They were 1) roofer, 2) taxicab driver, 3) commercial airplane pilot.  If flying is so much safer than driving, why do many pilots die?  I had to ask myself.

There are two reasons.  First, many paid pilots fly small planes in dangerous situations.  For example, they fly cropdusters and spread chemicals over farm fields.  They have to fly close to the ground and trees and often have accidents.  Others fly into remote areas such as the Arctic or land on dirt fields in Africa.  Those areas are more dangerous.  Most people don't fly in cropdusters, so passenger planes are a little safer than the statistics might indicate.

However, there is a second reason flying is more dangerous.  By the hour, fly is about equally dangerous to being in a car.  That is, planes and cars crash in roughly equal numbers (planes are VERY slightly safer, because they are more carefully checked and managed).  However, planes fly faster than cars driver.  Planes go 200-500 miles in an hour and cars go 30-60 miles in an hour.  Therefore, by the mile (distance travelled), planes are about seven times safer then driving the same distance by car.  However, by the hour, planes are only slightly safer.  Why?  As noted above, people may not check their tires or car parts as carefully as commercial passenger planes get checked.  Few airlines would fly with very old tires or worn out controls.  But people drive old cars all the time.

Trains, like planes, are carefully checked.  China's bullet trains ride on dedicated tracks and do not cross roads.  This makes them much safer than America's few passenger trains.  I say "few" because there are no trains in my area.  If I want to ride a train to go east or west (New York or San Francisco) from my home in Arkansas I would have to:

1) drive my car three hours to the nearest bus station (I've never ridden an American train)

2) take the train north to Chicago or south to New Orleans (about 400-500 miles or 700-800 km north or south)

3) wait for the ONE train each day that goes east or west to New York or San Francisco.

For most people in the US, taking a train or a bus is not an option.  Here in north central Arkansas, the last passenger trains ran in the 1930s and the last bus left in the 1960s.  I don't know how long I might have to wait for the next train or bus here, but it won't be coming any time soon!  It probably won't arrive in my lifetime!  I'll drive if I go anywhere!