More people die in automobile crashes than from train crashes and crimes in public transit systems.

This doesn't mean anything. Although many more die from automobile crashes doesn't make using public transportation in some major cities inherently dangerous or unpleasant - even unhealthy.

Being on a busy road surrounded by cars all burning petrol is not exactly a healthy place to be either.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35504768

At least I rarely have to fear for my life while driving through a bad part of town, which is definitely not the case while using public transportation or walking. Which is my main point, health was a side note.

>I rarely have to fear for my life while driving through a >bad part of town >which is definitely not the case while using public >transportation Source? Are you sure that this perceived difference in safety in 'the bad part of town' is not completely in your mind?

thousands of people take public transit through 'the bad parts of town' in places like Chicago and NYC every day and they (relatively speaking) don't have to fear for their lives either.

I understand this is purely anecdotal, but every time I'm driven through Compton, I've never had a problem. Almost every time I have to walk down Central, even to grab a drink from the gas station, someone see's me, a smaller white guy, and it always ends with me waving my Kershaw.

Also the reason why I moved down to Orange County, yet I still somehow landed in one of the worst neighborhoods in Anaheim.

And let me tell you this, we see the highest amount of NO2 pollution in traffic in the inside of cars. A good filter may help you, but many many cars don't have them.

The statistics don’t really tell that story.

Getting mugged in a station doesn’t typically kill you, and you’re not travelling, so those stats won’t be counted.

If there was an “incidents per mile travelled”, metric for my trip during daylight hours that would be one thing. But there isn’t any such statistic.

It’s almost certainly cheaper, safer, more time efficient and dramatically more convenient to take a car. In my personal, typical case, I live and work in the same city. Drive/bike/bus/walk time is 10/25/45/90 minutes, respectively. Cost if daily commute assuming IRS costs is about 20% more for driving, but with shorter more predictable and more flexible trips.

> The statistics don’t really tell that story.

> In my personal, typical case

They may not tell that story in this particular case, but unless something is wrong with the way with the statistics are gathered, it does present a better top-level picture than personal anecdotes. (While personal anecdotes can also be useful in understanding how to design around edge cases, but are not useful when figuring out the best way to design a system).

Highway safety statistics have significant limitations with respect to fine grain detail and data collection capability. Any datasource that uses police data must account for jurisdictional differences in data collection as well.

Nothing is wrong with the statistics, it's how you use them. It's just difficult to meaningfully say that it's safer to take the bus from point A to point B using statistics that are generalized over time and geography.

For example, 30% of motor vehicle fatalities are alcohol related, and the vast majority of those fatalities take place after most people are done commuting for the day. Uber probably has a significant impact on preserving human life, after dark.

The purpose of the anecdote is to illustrate how those stats relate to decision making and risk/reward management by the travelling public. Am I at more risk driving three exits down the highway vs. crossing a busy avenue, sitting at a bus stop, riding a bus, crossing three other busy streets? I don't know -- and those statistics that you are citing don't answer that question. My guess is that I'm safer in my late-model car in a typical automobile accident than in any traffic or crime incident in the bus case.

They still have an important point about what statistics to use. Total death count is useless. You want numbers for per-mile and per-hour, and you want to look at more than just deaths.

Yes, but that doesn't actually prove anything about the safety aspects of switching from public transit to a taxi-like service. The comparison would have to be made like-for-like trips.

However, the risks for both are quite small, and that's why the quite big gap in convenience dominates the equation, anyway.