You can’t make this blanket statement and I would bet on average it’s the opposite still.
- Flying in the US is on average ~750x safer per mile than driving according to 2000-2010 data (it’s likely even larger a difference in the modern era).
- I would venture to guess that most US flights are in the 1000-2000 mile range and most US car trips are easily more than the equivalent 2-3 miles.
- Most fatalities from flying occur during takeoff and landing, so longer flights are actually safer per mile. Relating this back to the thread, the risk of catastrophic failure from your choice (or non-choice) of airframe only really affects the off-ground danger and not the higher danger you face on a taxiway/runway.
- All of these numbers are based purely on fatalities but I’m guessing your definition of “safety” includes being maimed or otherwise seriously injured. You have several orders of magnitude higher chance of being seriously injured in a car crash compared to flying since accidents in aviation are much more likely to end in death.
Some caveats for others who don't want to read the study.
1. This is a study done on rats and is only a single study, so caveat emptor.
2. They administer 250mg/kg/d Aspartame (human recommended max dose is 50mg/kg/d) based on the claim that "Species correction required a five to six times higher dose in rats than humans, as rats metabolize aspartame faster than humans"
3. Even if you assume effects correlate perfectly to humans, a dosage of 50mg/kg/d in the average American 90kg male corresponds to 22.5 12-oz cans of Diet Coke (200 mg Aspartame) per day for 30 days straight (length of the study).
4. There was a group of rats fed Aspartame at those levels for 1 month, then left to recover for 1 month. The sciatic nerve in these rats recovered significantly, and although it appears the recovery was incomplete, they also state that this difference is not statistically significant. There is also no discussion about whether recovery over a time period > 1 month would have resulted in complete recovery.
I don't think they even plot the tag numbers on any scale. It looks from the graph like it's just graphing the "rank" (but actually inverse rank), so they sort the languages by # of tags and give each position an inverse score corresponding to the rank (#1 gets 102 "points", #2 gets 101, #3 gets 100, etc.).
I should have clarified I'm not picking on the Model Y in particular because I think it's a perfectly reasonably sized car and I agree it's much safer than most full-size trucks, it's just surprising how much EVs can weigh. The worrying trend is that moving forward, there are a lot of EVs much bigger than the model Y in the pipeline:
If we're talking cars hitting you at 80mph, sure you're probably dead no matter what. But a 9,000 lb car hitting you at 35mph is traveling with the same momentum as a 3,000 lb car going 105mph. You might survive a 3,000 lb car hitting you at 35 mph, you're unlikely to survive the other.
Hah, no kidding. It's undoubtedly a massive feat of engineering, but so are a lot of things that don't belong on our roads.
I'd much rather live with the vast majority of smaller cars and trucks electrifying and letting the 0.1% of people who feel the need to drive a Hummer keep their gas-guzzling cars. At least the old gas models were a "mere" 5,000 lbs and accelerated 0-60 in a much more reasonable 7-8 seconds.
If you're looking for recommendations, one option is the XC40 Recharge, which comes in at 175".
But I agree they are getting so unnecessarily long. Not just in the car length, but also in the wheelbase. The Ioniq 5 (compact SUV / hatchback) has a longer wheel base (118") and thus worse turning radius than a Toyota 4Runner SUV (110"). Makes it a nightmare for city driving & parking.
The US government was also largely responsible for incentivizing the supersizing of American cars with emissions standards based on footprint (road to hell paved with good intentions, etc.), which then had a knock-on effect on consumer demand. So it's certainly possible to incentivize automakers to go the other way, even if you can't change public behavior directly.
I am a little afraid of the long-term safety implications of people driving these massive (literally by mass, not volume) EVs. As if being a pedestrian, biker, or small-car driver wasn't already dangerous enough in the US. For context, a compact SUV EV weighs almost as much as many full-size trucks:
Current Cars
* 2023 Compact Gas SUV (RAV4): 3,370 lbs
* 2023 F-150 V8 Supercab: ~4,500 lbs
* Your typical American short school bus: 10,000 lbs
EVs
* 2023 Tesla Model Y: ~4,500 lbs
* 2023 F-150 Lightning Extended Range: ~6,500 lbs
* 2022 Hummer EV: 9,000 lbs
Except now the 9,000 lb SUV can go 0-60 in 3 seconds.
You can’t make this blanket statement and I would bet on average it’s the opposite still.
- Flying in the US is on average ~750x safer per mile than driving according to 2000-2010 data (it’s likely even larger a difference in the modern era).
- I would venture to guess that most US flights are in the 1000-2000 mile range and most US car trips are easily more than the equivalent 2-3 miles.
- Most fatalities from flying occur during takeoff and landing, so longer flights are actually safer per mile. Relating this back to the thread, the risk of catastrophic failure from your choice (or non-choice) of airframe only really affects the off-ground danger and not the higher danger you face on a taxiway/runway.
- All of these numbers are based purely on fatalities but I’m guessing your definition of “safety” includes being maimed or otherwise seriously injured. You have several orders of magnitude higher chance of being seriously injured in a car crash compared to flying since accidents in aviation are much more likely to end in death.