On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 13:45:07 UTC, Ronald Raygun
wrote:
: Ian Johnston wrote:
: You are assuming, though, that "being on the road" and "being likely
: to die of natural causes" are independent, which is quite definitely
: not the case.
:
: Yes, that's what, for simplicity, I am indeed assuming, and fully
: accept that this is likely not to be the case. I'm not sure I'd
: guess correctly which way the skew works.
I'd have thought it would skew very strongly away from natural deaths
on the roads. Most people are ill before they die and most ill people
are in bed: either at home or in a hospital.
: In addition, the 3,500 deaths per year
:
: What 3500 deaths per year? Your figure was 3000 accidental deaths
: per year per 60M poulation. Mine was 1 natural death per year per
: 3500 population.
Sorry - I should have explained. I remembered slightly on the low
side.
"According to Department for Transport figures the overall number of
reported road casualties in 2003 were 290,607. This is a 4% reduction
on the figures for 2002. 3,508 people were killed, a 2% increase on
the previous year."
from
http://tinyurl.com/hmytt
: Neither "being a glider pilot" nor "dying of natural causes" are
: evenly distributed, and they are not independent. Would you expect 1
: in 700,000 of both schoolchildren and octogenerians to die every hour?
:
: Of course not, but a simplified model might expect accidental deaths
: to be evenly distributed, and natural deaths to be well skewed in
: favour of the old.
Far too simple, I think. It may be OK to assume that accidental deaths
would be evenly distributed amongst the participating population, in
some cases, but that still leaves the participant distribution in the
mix.
What were we arguing about anyway? It can't be that gliding is more
dangerous than driving, 'cos we agree on that!
Is it "how much more dangerous is it?" Here's my new ball park
calculation.
Each year about 5 out of 5000 regularly active UK glider pilots die in
gliding incidents. They'll do about 50 hours per annum, which means
one fatal accident for every 50,000 hours.
Each year about 500 out of 20,000,000 regularly active drivers die in
road traffic incidents (most RTA deaths are pedestrians and many of
the rest are passengers). They'll do about 10,000 miles at 50 mph =
200 hours per annum, which means one death for every 8,000,000 hours.
On that basis, flying a glider is 160 times more dangerous, per hour,
than driving a car. Lots of wiggle room and rounding, obviously, but
I'm happy with a factor of 100 - 200 here.
I've tried to find some statistics for watersports, to drag this
vaguely back on topic, but the best I can do is
http://www.rospa.com/factsheets/accidents_overview.pdf which give 427
drownings per annum. That includes everyone from yachtsmen in storms
to toddlers in paddling pools, though, so I wouldn't even like to try
for a ball park figure here.
Ian