In the United States, almost everyone drives. They drive to school, they drive to the store, they drive to work. Many people spend hours every week just commuting back and forth between home and the office.
By the same token, a lot of people are nervous about other means of travel. One of the most common examples is flying in a plane. Even some people who get up the nerve to do it are stressed the whole time, thinking that they’re in a lot of danger and wishing they could just drive to their destination.
Statistically, this fear doesn’t make sense
When you look at the stats, the truth is that flying is incredibly safe. In fact, some researchers said that they tried to calculate the odds that someone would have of passing away in an airline accident over their entire life, but the risk was so small that they couldn’t even pin down the number.
Meanwhile, roughly 40,000 people die in car accidents every single year. Thousands and thousands more suffer from life-altering injuries. To get to the same level of risk with airliners, a major plane accident would have to happen every single day.
The reason we tend to fear plane crashes is that they’re such catastrophic events when they do occur. But they occur so infrequently that the risk isn’t that substantial. It’s easy to overlook car accidents because they are such minor events by comparison. Since they happen so often, though, they pose a much greater threat to your actual health and well-being.
If you do get injured in a car accident or if you lose a loved one, make sure you’re well aware of the legal options you have to make sure that you get the compensation you are due.