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Risk of dying from one thing or other is generally measured in deaths per thousand or 100,000 people or some similar method. Despite these numbers people tend to interpret the risk of various behaviors strangely. For example a new disease, or use of a pesticide that happens to be in the news a lot
will create a lot of fear, while those same fearful people continue smoking 2 packs a day and drinking their jack daniel's.
I think a more understandable unit of risk is in order. If we use the average traffic accident fatality rate on american highways it should be easy enough to convert any risky behavior, at least as it relates to the likelyhood of causing death, into miles driven.
How many miles is that parachute jump equivalent to? Am I more likely to die on my way to work this week than jumping out of an airplane? Think of it that way and it doesn't seem so bad. On the other hand... how many road miles is it until my risk of dying is equivalent to my risk of contracting aids from sex with a prostitute in tijuana... hmmm might wanna think twice about that.
A rant on the subject
http://techref.mass...chref/other/911.htm
With some figures and links to sources of information. [James Newton, Jul 10 2006]
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break up your text, dear, for easy reading... |
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& btw, see profile page - bakesperson wants a word. |
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Did you know that the chances of dying in traffic on your way to go buy a lottery ticket are greater than you winning the lottery? bun. |
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A biologist covered this topic once in a work of popular science (Cohen or Dawkins, I can't recall which one). |
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The gist was that an extremely long lived alien living on our world just wouldn't bother to get out of bed, 'cos sooner or later some accident would kill them. |
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Then there was the hypothetical cigarette that is perfectly harmless, except for the 1 in every 20000 that is instantly lethal. It would never be allowed to be produced, yet the lifetime risk of smoking this type of cigarette is arguably lower than the risk of smoking real ones. |
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The problem with trying to convert risk into miles, or an equivalent, is that it assumes an even spread of risk across all roads, all times of day, all vehicles and all drivers, which simply doesn't bear out. And without wanting to muddy the waters much further, even if the risk could be calculated it would be change over time, 'cos the factors continually change. |
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Finally, I'm not sure that it's clear how your risk of death on any given journey is affected by how many journeys you've already undertaken. Whilst the risk is probably not entirely independent of previous journeys, I'm not convinced of a cumulative increase in risk either (just think of a 7 year old versus a 22 year old pedestrian or a new driver versus one with 10 years' experience). |
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