SOLUTION: Consider these statistics from the National Transportation Sagety Board: In 1996, 319 people were killed in U.S. commercial airline accidents. Of course this is bad, but how does i

Question 290603: Consider these statistics from the National Transportation Sagety Board: In 1996, 319 people were killed in U.S. commercial airline accidents. Of course this is bad, but how does it compare to the 42,065 people killed in automobile accidents? Is it fair to compare cars and airplanes? A way to even out the statistics to get a better feel for the relative safety of these modes of transportation is to use the ratio deaths per passenger-mile. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, during 1996 the commercial airlines accounted for approximately 445.2 billion passenger-miles (445,200,000,000), whereas automobiles accounted for 3,630 billion passenger-miles. How do the death statistics compare now? 1. Write ratios showing deaths per billion passenger-miles for each form of transportation. 2. How many deaths per year would occur if cars had the same death rate per billion passenger-miles as airplanes? what does this say about the safety of driving versus flying? Sorry this is so long!

Found 2 solutions by richwmiller, stanbon:
Answer by richwmiller(17219) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
It would be fairer to compare busses to airplanes since airplanes carry so many more passengers.
and bus drivers are more trained than the average driver as pilots are more trained than car drivers

Answer by stanbon(75887) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
Consider these statistics from the National Transportation Sagety Board:
In 1996, 319 people were killed in U.S. commercial airline accidents.
---
Of course this is bad, but how does it compare to the 42,065 people killed in automobile accidents?
---
Is it fair to compare cars and airplanes? A way to even out the statistics to get a better feel for the relative safety of these modes of transportation is to use the ratio deaths per passenger-mile.
--------
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, during 1996 the commercial airlines accounted for approximately 445.2 billion passenger-miles (445,200,000,000),
--------
whereas automobiles accounted for 3,630 billion passenger-miles. How do the death statistics compare now?
----------
1. Write ratios showing deaths per billion passenger-miles for each form of transportation.
Planes: 319/445,200,000,000 = 7.165x10^-10
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Cars: 42,065/3,630,000,000,000 = 1.168x10^-7
2. How many deaths per year would occur if cars had the same death rate per billion passenger-miles as airplanes?
(ratio)(car miles) = car deaths
(7.165x10^-10)(3,630,000,000,000) = 2601.01 car deaths per year
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what does this say about the safety of driving versus flying?
Planes are safer.
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Cheers,
Stan H.
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