general aviation has a better safety story than driving, when you look at it on a per mile travelled basis.

> general aviation has a better safety story

Quite likely _because_ , unlike driving, the vast majority of passenger-miles in aviation are not undertaken in small vehicles owned by the passenger/driver, or family thereof. i.e. because there aren't lots of "flying cars".

i said general aviation, not commercial aviation; commercial aviation has a better safety story by _every_ metric, by a large margin. general aviation is a lot of small airplanes owned by the 'driver'; akin to 'flying cars' ;-)

Ah ok. Even so, Aviation is much more heavily regulated - compare getting a licence to drive a VW to getting a licence to fly a Cessna. And likely to stay that way, for these safety reasons.

I don't think that's a great metric. I believe by miles traveled, space travel is safer than cars and airplanes.

I'm guessing small planes wouldn't fare so well compared as total number of trips vs trips with an accident.

"deaths per passenger-mile" is a standard metric though (1), and a fully packed long-haul Airbus scores extremely well on it.

I expect it works best as a comparison between modes that travel on the same medium - e.g. Bus beats motorcycle, and they both are found on the same roads. A380 beats Cessna (2)

Space travel is an outlier of course, very dangerous in general, and orbiting isn't traveling to anywhere any meaningful sense. It's just floating in space.

As a mode of transport, it's also not really a major mover of people around the world.

1) "Other comparisons are possible based on passenger trips, vehicle miles, or vehicle trips, but passenger miles is the most commonly used basis for comparing the safety of various modes of travel."

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...

"Passenger Fatalities per Billion Passenger Miles 2000-2009" https://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix...

2) https://www.livescience.com/49701-private-planes-safety.html