Ian Johnston wrote:

About 3000 people in the UK die in road accidents each year. Assuming
that almost all the population uses roads in some way, that;s 3000 out
of 60 million, which is 1 in 20000.

If the average person lives to the age of 80, it follows that 1 in 80
of the population dies each year anyway (from all causes). Thus you'd
expect 1 in 700000 of the population to die in any hour.

If the average person spends 200 hours a year on the roads, you'd expect
1 in 3500 of the population to die on the roads each year (from all causes).

If in addition 1 in 20000 die from road accidents per year, this suggests
6 in 7 of all road deaths are non-accidental.

Of the 5000 or so glider pilopts
in the UK, about 5 die flying annually which gives a death rate per
annum of 1 in 1000.

You'd still expect 1 in 700k gliders to die each hour simply because they
are part of the general population. And if they spend 20 hours per year
in the air, you'd expect 1 in 35k of gliders to die in the air each year.
If in fact 1 in 1000 die in gliders each year, you'd expect only 1 in 35
air deaths to be non-accidental.

Doesn't that make gliding 30 times as dangerous as being on the road?