https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/motor-vehicle-safety/index.ht...
And the ranking there is kind of misleading because the types of countries that collect fatalities per unit distance at all are the ones that tend to do really well on it. We don't have the data for Russia or China but guesstimating based on accidents per 100k vehicles, it's bad.
Whereas e.g. Germany does really well. But fatalities per unit distance for the US isn't even twice the number in Germany, whereas in terms of fatalities per 100k population, the US is 335% of Germany. Consistent with the bulk of the difference being explained in terms of more miles traveled.
My pet theory is that people don't know how dangerous their actions are _and_ feel entitled to break laws they deem useless. About 4 times out of 5 when somebody nearly hits me blowing through a stop sign and crosswalk they'll stop and apologize profusely, indicating they probably didn't intend to put me in harm's way. That's not a huge dataset though (at most a few times per week), and it doesn't say anything about tailgating or other forms of dangerous driving.
Basically a lot of people wouldn't be able to drive anymore.
Trains are much, much lower. Especially considering that in France, most lines are electrified and 70% of production is nuclear.
> in 2018, CO2 emissions averaged 88 grams of CO2 per revenue passenger per km.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_tran...
> In Europe, the European Commission enforced that from 2015 all new cars registered shall not emit more than an average of 0.130 kg of CO2 per kilometre (kg CO2/km). The target is that by 2021 the average emissions for all new cars is 0.095 kg of CO2 per kilometre.
0.088 < 0.095
That said, the 88 grams figure might not be accurate for short flights. But we'd still be in the same order of magnitude as a car
And even when you make this comparison with sensible data, the car still wins: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint
The big wrinkle in this comparison is that planes burn most of their energy in the ascent to cruising speed/altitude. Energy consumption per mile is likely to be much higher on a short hop flight where cruising altitude is never reached than a 12 hour transoceanic flight.
[0] https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/74614/norway-rai...
This under pressure sucks up the snow and plasters it to the train.
In Germany at least ICE train speed is reduced (despite their name ;-) if there is snow on the track.
I also looked up Amtrak's speeds and found a report from 2016 saying that over half of their trains had a top speed of 160 km/h or greater.
This sentence can be interpreted in multiple ways. Maybe they mean that half of their trains could theoretically ride at 160 kph, but that doesn’t mean that they ever actually reach such speeds on their routes. Or, maybe, that half of their trains reach 160 kph on some fraction of their route, maybe very small one.
What I would be more interested in is their average speed according to schedule, weighted by the frequency of trains on a given segment, and same average but for actual ride times, including delays etc.
Snow isn't an obstacle to trains (unless you don't want trains to be a reality).
[0] https://www.railway-technology.com/features/moscow-kazan-hig....
(Edited to fix an autocorrect correction from my phone)
>edmonton to calgary
I think think there's a slight difference between the things we're comparing
I can’t see building a high speed rail would be worth it for the volume of people going back and forth.
My reasons for driving vs flying were usually to do with how long I'd be there. If I was going for one day then flying was preferable since falling asleep on the way home isn't a big deal. If I was going for multiple days then driving was preferable so that I'd have a car and be able to go places after finishing at the office. Flying was preferable in winter in case the roads were in bad shape. Driving was preferable on Fridays so that I could visit friends afterwards and come back the next day. Flying was preferable during the Calgary Stampede to avoid having to deal with the excess traffic in Calgary (plus WestJet did a cowboy-themed safety lecture during Stampede which was kind of neat).