LSA's are 13 x more dangerous than motorbikes?

[APenNameAndThatA]

LSA's have a fatality rate of about 1 per 100 000 hours.

 

I am assuming that cars have an average speed of 50 kmph. The reference is not super informative and the 50 kph figure might be the weakest point in my calculations.

 

https://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/Safety/Road-safety/Road-safety-research-reports/Speed-compliance-and-average-speed-results#:~:text=Speeding%3A%20trends%20in%20posted%20speed,results%20from%202015%2D2018).&text=Average%20speeds%20of%20motorists%20on%2080km%2Fh%20roads,results%20from%202015%2D2018).

 

Australia has a fatal car accident every 200 000 000 car km. Reference:

 

https://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/ongoing/international_road_safety_comparisons#:~:text=In%20terms%20of%20the%20fatality%20rate%20per%2010%2C000%20registered%20vehicles,rate%20out%20of%2022%20nations.

 

200 000 000 / 50 = one fatality for 40 000 000 hours. Motorcycles are responsible for 1% of vehicle kilometers but 30% of deaths. Figures are in the the introduction to this PDF

 

https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2008/pdf/mono20.pdf

 

So, Motorcycles are responsible for a death every 40 000 000 / 30 ≈ 1 300 000 hours between deaths. Or, 13 times safer than LSA's.

 

That does not sound right, but who knows.

 

If you assume that the number of people killed per car accident is two, and the average number for motorcyclists killed per accident is 1.1 ≈ 1, then I can't work out what that does to the figures without thinking about it.

Edited June 11, 2020 by red750

[Old Koreelah]

All those statistics make my brain hurt, but there are other ways to measure risk. Hours spent, rather than distance travelled perhaps?

 

Most of us know of fatalities in both motorcycling and flying, but I have reluctantly given up the former for the latter, because I perceive the risk to be far less.

[facthunter]

YOU have a lot of control of the FLYING risk IF you choose to exercise it and you are the owner and the operator. of a rec. plane. .

You can be dumber in a modern car and get away with it moreso than a plane which is as commonly and accurately quoted as being "less forgiving of errors". On a motorcycle, you have little protection and get a poor deal from "tin tops" by and large. Variation of road surfaces must be coped with well or you are off and colliding with something.

Flying especially at height can be boring. In the olden days you sat waiting for something to self destruct. The more engines you had the more likely demands were made of you. In later years your main "worries" are weather related "Fuel" and departing "ON TIME".. I've always like going somewhere.

There's only ONE seat worth sitting in and that's the one right up the front on the left on a passenger plane. Then you have a fighting Chance. but you must accept the "Buck stops with YOU". Nev

[Flightrite]

YOU have a lot of control of the FLYING risk IF you choose to exercise it and you are the owner and the operator. of a rec. plane. .

You can be dumber in a modern car and get away with it moreso than a plane which is as commonly and accurately quoted as being "less forgiving of errors". On a motorcycle, you have little protection and get a poor deal from "tin tops" by and large. Variation of road surfaces must be coped with well or you are off and colliding with something.

Flying especially at height can be boring. In the olden days you sat waiting for something to self destruct. The more engines you had the more likely demands were made of you. In later years your main "worries" are weather related "Fuel" and departing "ON TIME".. I've always like going somewhere.

There's only ONE seat worth sitting in and that's the one right up the front on the left on a passenger plane. Then you have a fighting Chance. but you must accept the "Buck stops with YOU". Nev

I used to like the front right seat, same ride, same view less responsability, went to the left seat and thought Christ this ain't worth the extra bucks!

 

Bike riding there's less control of yr destiny, flying there's more control of yr destiny. I sold my bikes some years ago, too many deaths of mates!

Edited June 10, 2020 by Flightrite

[Old Koreelah]

I don't remember there being so many roos on the roads when I was young and indestructible on the bike.

Went far and fast, especially at night, but only ever hit one. Today, reaction time is atrocious and there seem to be so many marsupials and errant drivers that I even avoid trips in the car at night.

[spacesailor]

I took out five roo's at one go. Mitchel hwy at dusk, must have been an extra large mob, two hops from their field to my side of the road (the far side of the road).

Glad I had a good roo-bar, it was pushed slightly into the bonnet, but no bad damage.

spacesailor

[APenNameAndThatA]

Here’s some better maths.

 

LSA’s fly at 90 kts, or 170 kph. On fatal per 100 000 hrs = one fatal per 17 000 000 km.

 

200 / 17 = 12. So, about 12 times more dangerous than driving, and about 40% as dangerous as a motor bike. That *does* make intuitive sense to me. I am not sure if those numbers need to take into account number of vehicle occupants.

[APenNameAndThatA]

Those stats also mean that the faster LSA’s are the safer they are.

[Flightrite]

I'm getting a headache!?

[kgwilson]

I don't remember where I read it but by far the most motorcycle accidents are caused by car drivers. So get rid of cars and motorbikes are infinitely more safe.

[Old Koreelah]

I don't remember where I read it but by far the most motorcycle accidents are caused by car drivers. So get rid of cars and motorbikes are infinitely more safe.

...especially on the Oxley Highway, The GOR, etc. Then the only danger is from Ducatis coming at you on the wrong side of the road.

[facthunter]

Ride two wheelers in the mountains and you will get Landcruisers coming around on "your" side with no hurry whatever to get back on the correct side.. A bloke GAVE me a quite good landcruiser and they are like a battleship, on a wet roundabout especially with a few drops of Diesel spilt. Nev

[alf jessup]

So what we are saying is rec pilots are more dangerous than motorcycle riders.

In actual fact the plane and bike are as safe as houses, only time they are dangerous is when a human controls one or attempts to in some cases.

[M61A1]

I don't remember where I read it but by far the most motorcycle accidents are caused by car drivers. So get rid of cars and motorbikes are infinitely more safe.

 

From a study....

https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2008/pdf/mono20.pdf

 

About 42% of motorcycle fatalities are single vehicle and the following table from that report give the figures below.

 

Table 24.

Responsibility allocated to operators in multiple-vehicle crashes involving the death of a motorcyclist, 1999-2003

Factor %

Motorcycle rider 55 %

Other vehicle operator 29 %

Both 13 %

Unknown 3 %

Total 100 %

 

So....42% crash all by themselves and 55% of the 48% of multiple vehicle crash fatalities are to blame.

I enjoy motorcycling myself and have done so for some 40 years, but sadly as much as motorcyclists like to blame car drivers for most crashes, it's just not true. I have read several articles with the same conclusion.

Like this....

 

https://amcn.com.au/editorial/the-c-word-why-riders-crash/

[Flightrite]

So what we are saying is rec pilots are more dangerous than motorcycle riders.

In actual fact the plane and bike are as safe as houses, only time they are dangerous is when a human controls one or attempts to in some cases.

 

That goes for anything humans have invented, drugs, guns all machinery fixed and in motion, as safe as the user/operator!

[alf jessup]

That goes for anything humans have invented, drugs, guns all machinery fixed and in motion, as safe as the user/operator!

Your on to it, we are the weakest link

[pmccarthy]

My tip for bike safety is ride by yourself. With others, I get sucked into speeds and conditions I would not do alone. Even my wife, who is a conservative sixty-something motorcyclist, pushes me a bit sometimes when we ride together.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Just picking up this thread and haven't looked at the maths in great detail, but if we are talking comparing risk of flying to risk of driving (or more accurately road use), then it is an almost impossible comparison. For example, we could use the absolute fatalities per time unit (hours) or distance travelled, but at best, both are crude comparisons best left to the senationalistic press. For example, what is the big factor (outside of the pilot/driver/rider/pedestrian) missing from this the above that would have a major bearing on the numbers if it were consistent between the two? Weather. If we took away all of the accidents that happened in driveable, but poor weather (and assuming most LSA flying is done in good weather, of course), we may find the statistical averages of fatalities per hour or per distance travelled quite different for the road users.. .but would that not be a more valid comparison? Also, traffic density... and other obstructions/distractions...

 

In financial engineering, we have to do back testing of our risk models. This means that we have to effectively scrub yesterday's and historiucal and current data sets from all the noise that will distort the key findings and then apply the models. The maths applied to the scrubbing is usually as complex as the models themselves. Referring back to scrubbng the datasets so that we can approximate the weather conditions and model accordingly, well, you do the math.. It is not simple.

 

Wherever we are with respect to operating vehicles, we can mitigiate most of the risks, but not eliminate them all.. But we should strive to minimise it to the lowest practical value.

[Bruce Tuncks]

In 50 years of flying, nobody at my club has been killed at or out of Gawler. They all die from road crashes or more likely, medical reasons.

Here's my dream... that we all behave like that and in about 20 years CASA will have trouble getting funded.

[jackc]

Ride two wheelers in the mountains and you will get Landcruisers coming around on "your" side with no hurry whatever to get back on the correct side.. A bloke GAVE me a quite good landcruiser and they are like a battleship, on a wet roundabout especially with a few drops of Diesel spilt. Nev

I have 6 battleships and love them all:-)

[M61A1]

For example, what is the big factor (outside of the pilot/driver/rider/pedestrian) missing from this the above that would have a major bearing on the numbers if it were consistent between the two? Weather. If we took away all of the accidents that happened in driveable, but poor weather (and assuming most LSA flying is done in good weather, of course), we may find the statistical averages of fatalities per hour or per distance travelled quite different for the road users.

The study link I posted earlier covers that. Table 11. on page 13 tells us that about 90% of motorcycle fatalities happen on fine days. another graph shows that more happen on weekends than weekdays.

Dissapointingly they note that "excessive speed" is:

‘Excessive speed’ refers to a vehicle speed that was above the posted limit or deemed by police to be too fast for the conditions.

This is way too subjective. Can you imagine every aircraft investigation including speed as a cause? Essentially because if the weren't going that fast, they would have died from the impact.

 

I have 6 battleships and love them all:-)

They may be a very capable vehicle, but a lot of those driving them seem to actually think they are driving a battleship, and have no regard for other road users. Last time I was coming down the mountain at Queen Mary Falls, I had to run wide on my bike because there were a heap of them running wide around the corner with the lead F*#kwit on the two way radio and unable to steer properly.

There have been a couple around here that have made similar errors but with semis and are no longer around to do it again.

[Old Koreelah]

Ride two wheelers in the mountains and you will get Landcruisers coming around on "your" side with no hurry whatever to get back on the correct side.. A bloke GAVE me a quite good landcruiser and they are like a battleship, on a wet roundabout especially with a few drops of Diesel spilt. Nev

Unsafe at any speed over 80. A top Toyota engineer was travelling in our district with a mate when overtaken by a 'Cuiser. He was almost apoplectic, saying the Landcruiser had a design speed of 80kph. (The Corolla's is 130).

I assume most 4WD vehicles are in the same boat, but are regularly driven well over 100-often loaded badly top-heavy.

[M61A1]

Unsafe at any speed over 80. A top Toyota engineer was travelling in our district with a mate when overtaken by a 'Cuiser. He was almost apoplectic, saying the Landcruiser had a design speed of 80kph. (The Corolla's is 130).

I assume most 4WD vehicles are in the same boat, but are regularly driven well over 100-often loaded badly top-heavy.

Half the farmers around here will be fine then, 75 seems to be what they like. Although learning the right of way rules will have a better effect on their longevity or those sharing the road with them.

[spacesailor]

I,ll have to ask my daughter if her big V8 Cruiser is capt at 80 ks.

Her hubby drives at 140 ks, when out cruising around,

Others do that speed with the house on the tow-hook.

spacesailor.

[onetrack]

In the early 80's I was contract working with my equipment around Ravensthorpe (W.A.) and regularly spotted this tray-top Landrover around town and nearby, that was bent in the middle!

The chassis was bent downwards several inches in the centre, and I surmised that the farmer had seriously overloaded the old Landrover at one time, resulting in the big bend in the chassis!

 

One day I got the chance to pull up alongside him at the Motel and queried the reason for the bend, and what he'd put on it, that caused such a severe bend?

He replied, "Oh, I haven't overloaded it - I was hit from behind!! You know those XXXXX Bros?" (local contracting brothers who were noted as speed merchants, and who owned a Valiant Drifter van)

 

"Well, I was just checking the sheep in the paddock from the road (the South Coast Hwy, the major coastal highway), just doing about 15kmh! - when one of those mad XXXXX brothers ran right up my backside with his Valiant van, doing about 120kmh!! It shocked the Bejeesus out of me!! I banged my head on the back wall of the cab, and everything on the tray ended up on the bonnet of his Valiant!! And of course, it bent the chassis on the Landrover!!

 

I could hardly contain myself from laughing at my minds eye vision of a young speed merchant in his Drifter van, coming around a bend in the highway at full speed - only to find a farmer in an old Landrover, checking the sheep from the highway at 15kmh!!

Many farmers have trouble "getting up to speed", both mentally, and on the highway, when they leave their paddocks!! This bloke certainly learnt a big lesson about the difference between "property speeds" and "highway speeds".