• barkybeak@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      People’s intuition on risk is wildly off here.

      Skydiving sounds insane, but in the U.S. it’s ~9–10 deaths a year out of millions of jumps (roughly 1 in a few hundred thousand per jump).

      Driving feels normal, but it kills ~40,000+ people every single year.

      So yeah—both involve “transportation,” but the one everyone does casually every day is orders of magnitude deadlier than the one that sounds extreme.

    • otp@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Hmm. Motorcycling might be higher or counted together with driving a car. I forget the stats.

      The others generally aren’t used as methods of transportation, but instead are generally recreational activities.

      • shynoise@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Motorcycling is orders of magnitude more deadly on a person-mile basis. It varies a lot by motorcycle type, experience level, helmet. DUI also statistically has a heavier correlation with fatality in motorcycling (I’m not 100% but my understanding is that motorcycles are significantly harder to operate in such a way that dui effects are multiplied).

        I’m not sure if this is actually relevant to your discussion, I just like to discuss the reality of motorcycling (as a person who rides).