Which one is a safer mode of travel: Flying or driving? The answer to that question used to be a no-brainer. Flying was, statistically, much safer.
Two years ago, the National Safety Council had the odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident over one’s lifetime at 1 in 106. It was the seventh-leading cause of death. Car crashes were more deadly than falls and slightly less deadly than opioid overdoses.
In contrast, the NSC cited “too few deaths in 2018 to calculate odds” of dying as an airplane passenger.
Since then, boosted by COVID-19, flying has proven to be a more dangerous mode of travel. Over the same time, driving has gotten slightly less hazardous.
“I now estimate that the death risk on a 1,000-mile trip is about the same by plane as by car,” MIT statistician Arnold Barnett told the Washington Examiner.
Barnett cautions that “the chance of serious injury is still greater in the car.” The statistician argues that while plane travel was demonstrably “far safer before COVID-19,” he has come to believe “that mortality-risk benefit is gone for now.”
A white paper by Barnett titled “COVID-19 Risk Among Airline Passengers: Should the Middle Seat Stay Empty?” has the air travel industry talking. The paper concludes that, yes, the middle seats on planes probably should be left vacant to keep the risk of coronavirus infections down. (On otherwise full flights, leaving middle seats vacant can cut virus transmission from 1 in 4,300 to 1 in 7,700.)
Some airlines seem to be at least a little bit swayed by Barnett’s findings. Southwest Airlines had said it would prevent all middle seat bookings until the end of September, when federal coronavirus relief funds also end. It has now extended that through the end of October. Delta Air Lines has also said that it won’t book middle seats for the time being. American Airlines has called for a more significant study of the issue.
United Airlines is a different story. “Since July 1, we have allowed customers to select middle seats and other adjacent seats in advance, if they choose to, so that they can sit next to their travel companion,” said Delta spokesman Charles Hobart.
“For regularly scheduled flights that we expect to be fairly full, we’ll continue to do our best to reach out to customers about 24 hours prior to departure to notify them that their flight might be more full than expected and allow them to choose to rebook on a different flight or receive a travel credit. The overwhelming majority of customers choose to keep their travel plans the same,” he added.
United’s primary contention is that you can’t socially distance on planes. “Sitting in the aisle seat doesn’t adequately distance you from the person in the window or across the aisle,” Hobart said.
Instead, the airline requires masks for all passengers and “firmly enforc[es] the policy.” It uses “hospital-grade disinfectant sprayers” in the cabins and uses “high-efficiency air filters.”
Are those measures enough to stop the spread of COVID-19?
“Airplane air is fresh and probably cleaner than office air. The airplane’s cabin air is completely refreshed 20 times an hour. They also use HEPA filters, which should remove most viral particles,” Alex Berezow, Vice President of Scientific Communications for the American Council on Science and Health, told the Washington Examiner.
“The biggest concerns,” said Berezow, “are bathrooms and tabletops and being in close quarters with other people.” He singled out commodes as the greatest danger, explaining, “The bathroom is a festering petri plate.”
One solution is to “carry disinfectant wipes with you and wipe stuff down. That’s what I do,” Berezow said.
As for car travel, fatalities fell in the first quarter of this year, but that may not be the whole picture.
“The data indicate that compared to the same period a year ago, 70 fewer lives were lost in crashes, a 0.9% decrease,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told the Washington Examiner.
This dip continued “the encouraging downward trend in traffic fatalities of the last three years,” the agency said. However, it worries them that people have started to drive more recklessly with the road so clear for several months.
“While 70 fewer deaths occurred on the roads, the early estimates for the fatality rate increased from 1.05 to 1.10 for the quarter,” the NHTSA explained.
What that all means is that as people get back on the roads in more significant numbers, more reckless driving could again make flying the safer option.
