A foot or bicycle journey is not comparable to a commercial flight (except in the case of a few, statistically insignificant, cases). Furthermore, one flies commercially in order to get from A to B, not to spend a certain amount of time doing it, so the risk per hour is not a particularly useful figure.
> Furthermore, one flies commercially in order to get from A to B, not to spend a certain amount of time doing it
This isn't actually true for recreational travelers. People roughly spend the same amount of time traveling as before commercial flight, they just go further.
To put it differently, people generally have the same vacation time available to them. They're also generally willing to burn roughly the same fraction of their vacation on the travel portion.
Commercial air travel has just enabled people to travel further in the same amount of time, while also burning more fuel doing so vs. the alternatives (road, rail...)
That's a fair point, though, in these cases, I suspect cost is even more of a determinant (and as train travel is often more expensive than flying, trains would probably also look safer by that measure, too!)
What's implied in your statement is that the introduction of air travel reduced overall fuel consumption vs. where it was at when people traveled more by automobile.
This is obviously not the case.
Trying to compare the two "per pax mile" ignores the fact that the convenience of air travel createdmoretravel than it ever saved in fuel efficiency as a bulk mover. It covers longer distances in generally less time and more comfort, it created a new class of travel in an additive fashion, it didn't strictly replace the alternatives.
If we're actually debating fuel and emissions on a large scale, this is a major part of the larger picture.
Furthermore, since the primary dimension which matters to individuals is time and cost not distance, when you'd compare a vacation by automobile to flight, the automobile vacation would likely be to a nearer destination. So one shouldn't even be comparing equal distances if attempting such a comparison, it's just not comfortable and/or worthwhile for most people to drive across the country for a weekend trip - many will do that flight without batting an eye.
Fortunately modern vehicles, especially the likes of Teslas and supercharger networks completely destroy even your disingenuous comparison.
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