When people compare planes and cars, the data clearly shows that planes are less dangerous, yet it’s more common to find a lot of people who are scared to fly than it is to find people who are scared to drive. Both vehicles are used every day, but operate in very different environments and with different safety regulations, which affects how often accidents happen.
Planes are built with many safety systems. Commercial aircrafts are regularly inspected and pilots must go through intense training before earning their license. Air traffic is also closely controlled, which reduces the chances of collisions. Accidents involving planes do happen, but they are rare. When they do occur, first responders react quickly to save as many passengers as possible since plane crashes are rare and involve large groups of people.
Cars on the other hand, are used much more often and not all drivers have the same skill or attention. The process to get a driver‘s license is much less complicated than it is to become a pilot, contributing to the varying level of skill amongst drivers. Roads also have more unpredictable factors such as weather, traffic, pedestrians and potholes. Because of this, car accidents happen much more frequently than plane accidents. While most car crashes are small and cause little harm, serious car crashes are not necessarily uncommon.
One of the biggest differences regarding safety in cars versus planes shows up when looking at injuries. In the United States between 2003 and 2023, air travel resulted in about 675 serious injuries while land vehicles had over 47 million injuries.
Deaths per year also highlights the difference in safety. In the United States, car crashes cause around 36000 to 40000 thousands deaths every year. Even though cars are getting safer with better technology like airbags and automatic braking systems, the number of deaths is still extremely high due to the popularity of driving and consequent traffic as well as how many additional factors can result in a crash. In comparison, commercial air travel sometimes experiences zero fatalities in a full year, and even when accidents do happen, they are extremely rare compared to air travel.
Another important way to compare safety is by measuring risk per mile traveled. This gives a fair comparison because people travel much farther in air than they do in a single car trip. According to USAFacts, which summarizes government data, cars have 0.53 deaths per 100 million miles traveled, while planes have about 0.003 deaths per million miles traveled. Additionally, a 500 mile car trip has a 1 in 84000 chance of resulting in death while similar distance travelled by plane is 1 in 11 million. This means flying has an extremely low fatality rate even when distance is taken into consideration.
The reasons planes are statistically safer are structure and control. Pilots go through intensive training, aircrafts are inspected regularly and flights are guided by air traffic control systems— all of which reduce the chance of collisions. There are also strict safety regulations in the aviation field worldwide. Cars do not have the same level of control. Driving is regulated, but the process to obtain a license is less rigorous, there is more traffic and there are a larger amount of factors that are at play compared to flying.
Even though more people tend to be scared of flying than sitting in a car, statistics show that planes are safer than cars in almost every measurable way, including risk of death, risk of injury and risk per mile. While both car and plane trips end without any problems, flying has a much lower overall risk compared to driving.
