Meanwhile, a car mechanic's stories would make people worry about driving, once you realize how many badly-maintained vehicles driven by morons are hurtling down the highway at 73 mph.
Fortunately, most aircraft crashes happen due to multiple, uncorrelated failures lining up to cause a disaster.
73 MPH? Must be a leisurely Sunday church drive (at least here in the Atlanta metro, where cars engulfed in flame on the side of the interstate are not as rare as they should be).
Yeah, that's a fair point. But if things are flowing I regularly see 80+ (which probably lends itself to eventual 20 MPH when someone wrecks and causes awful traffic).
Definitely don't mind those late night drives, as long as you keep an eye out for people not signaling or not having their lights on.
It'd be awesome if we could invest in actual public transport instead of more lanes but...
I think the general principle is that the less control you personally have over the means of transportation, the more liability rest with others, and therefore the more checklists, procedures, and redundancies there are in place to protect you.
Very safe: trains and subways, buses, passenger aircraft, rollercoasters, elevators
Kind of like how talking to somebody who works in any restaurant kitchen will scare you from eating out anywhere.