- One is more likely to be killed on the drive to the airport than on a flight on an airline with a good safety record.
Rail and plane travel are much safer in terms of annual and lifetime odds than road travel when calculated in terms of deaths and total population.
The odds of being killed on a single airline flight are 1 in 29.4 million. The OAG Aviation & PlaneCrashInfo.com accident database calculates odds of fatality for an individual on one of the 39 safest airliners at 1 in 10 million. However, by comparison, on the 39 airlines with the worst records, the odds are calculated to be more than 10 times greater at 1 in 1.5 million.
Still, a motor vehicle occupant's accidental death risk per year during a drive are 1 out of 7,700 referring to U.S. Department of Transportation. The lifetime odds of a motor vehicle accident is 1:112 referring to National Safety Council.
- "Mile to Mile" comparison of different modes of transportation show that travel by air has the same fatality rate as driving, but a much lower fatal accident rate (by a large number of fatalities per accident).
The fatality rates calculated by Mereterix for driving is 1.32 fatal accidents and 1.47 fatalities per 100 million miles (for 2014, the fatality rate fell to a record-low of 1.07 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled) and airlines is .05 fatal accidents and 1.57 fatalities per 100 million miles.