Posted on 03/26/2015 5:25:59 PM PDT by Kaslin
The prospect of automobile and airplane accidents are different psychologically because of 1. control or lack of and 2. survivability.
If you’ve ever watched people disembarking from a commercial flight, you might notice that everybody is wearing a face upon which is etched a combination of triumph and relief. Also, mark their behavior during a landing. The atmosphere is tense, and the tension immediately lifts once the plane has come to a stop.
And the fact that you are completely dependent on the integrity of a machine.
We are currently obsessed with aircraft disasters because its merely a metaphor for a bigger disaster. Kind of Freudian, I guess... We have someone leading the Ship of State into the ground, purposely wrecking the Republic, while appearing to upwards of half the population of anything but that. What are the rest of us to do while the plane goes into the ground? Well, obsess over aircraft disasters.
I suppose that is natural
Fear of heights.
you are right...it’s all about control and survivability. I love Rush, but he was just stammering around cluelessly on this topic. He eventually swerved into some truth, but it’s clear: in a car, you are IN CONTROL.....and you can imagine a minor car accident if something goes wrong.
When something goes wrong at 35000 feet, there is no minor accident possibility.
Because of the time it takes for the tragedy to unfold - an automobile accident is over in a matter of seconds - little time to anticipate and panic - but just the thought of having five minutes to become aware that your are inevitably going to crash and die, and imagining the horror this anticipation would bring on, is enough to make one think twice of flying......
In ages past, I think ship-wrecks and sinkings evoked the same kinds of fear. There were a lot of people sailing in ships who could not swim.
Georgia is on mt short list of possible places to look into. Where would you suggest I look in Georgia?
Thanks.
I just finished reading “Dead Wake” abut The Lusitania and you are correct.
It was huge news——and not just because of the war.
It’s human to want a lot of information about tragedies.
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Clueless is right, we haven’t been at 50,000 auto related deaths since the 70s. Averaging around 35,000 per year the last decade and declining.
The proper way to compare air travel safety and auto safety is not by looking at deaths per mile. A real comparison is deaths per trip. If you get on the conveyance will you get off alive?
A cursory look says about 15,000 passenger flights per day. Let’s call that 50,000 to be generous. That’s a lot of flights. That’s also a drop in the bucket compared to the number of car trips.
Cars safe. Air travel much less safe. Get in a car and the odds of exiting the car alive are high. Get on a plane and the odds of exiting the plane alive are not as high.
When you fly, you are putting your life into the hands of many strangers of questionable competence. From the person who designed the aircraft and software to the mechanic who maintains it to the pilot who flies it to the air traffic controller who directs the flight. Plus you are surrounded by strange people, any of which could decide at some moment to kill everyone. It is amazing in a way that flying is so safe.
The ambulance chaser biz has dropped off so much, around here they’re all trolling on tv for Social Security disability clients.
You fly the airplane.
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