(written couple of days after the recent German air plane crash in March 2015.)

 

Another airline crash and heard the same statement by a scientifically minded, engineer type person –

“Air travel is the safest mode of travel”

This statement has always intrigued me. I walk day and night in my house, at my work and in neighborhood. Am I more at risk than say, pilot of Indian army or a truck driver by profession!

These stats are based on distance traveled, so something like “number of casualties” / “distance traveled”.

This criteria itself looks pretty weird at least for comparing different modes of travel. In most cases, do we even have a choice?

When I travel from Boston to Delhi, can I chose between air travel, driving and walking!

Or

Can I choose it, when I commute 15 miles to work!

On the other hand if I just wanted to have some fun for couple of hours and choices being trail walk, scenic drive and helicopter ride, wouldn’t the criteria – “number of casualties / time traveled” make more sense. In these scenarios, I can’t imagine helicopter ride being safest by any criteria.

Anyway, where does it leave sleeping.

We all know, some people die in sleep, while distance traveled in sleep is almost zero.

So the above criteria applied to sleep, makes sleep extremely risky!!  –

And finally, by increasing denominator in above equation – “number of casualties” / “distance traveled”,

you know who would make sleeping a bit safe for all of us – sleep walkers 🙂

ha ha ha

 

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