You are safer flying on a commercial airliner than you are walking as a pedestrian.  For years I have repeated this fact in my classes.  I based it on a renowned MIT researcher’s statistics that each year approximately 7,000 people in the United States die as pedestrians. 

The Wrong Time to be Walking

Now a preliminary study reveals that your risk as a pedestrian jumps 186 percent between October to November.  The reason:  switching clocks back to Standard Time from daylight-savings time.  It seems that both drivers and pedestrians are initially slow to adjust when darkness comes an hour earlier.  The increased risk then drops 21 percent in December and continues to decline through May.  The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety of Arlington, VA., in earlier studies found the switch from daylight-savings time to standard time increased pedestrian deaths.  Estimates are that year-round daylight-saving time would save about 200 deaths a year.   

This recent study was precipitated by a father (and researcher) who regularly walks with his 4-year-old twins around 6 p.m. and worried whether he should be more cautious starting after the fall time switch.   What does this have to do with flying safety?  Does the time switch make flying more dangerous?  I don’t know of any studies in that area, but it just goes to show you the way the mind of a fearful flyer works.  Always willing to look for the bad news about flying, right?   

Get Me There Any Other Way! 

Many fearful flyers rationalize that any other way to travel besides flying—walking, driving, taking trains or buses—must be safer.  In the mind of a fearful flyer, it’s that illusion of control offered by  these other modes of transportation that make them seem more attractive and therefore less dangerous than flying.  For example, people tend to think, If I drive, I am in control.  Nothing, however, makes these other transportation modes as safe as flying on a commercial airline.   Regulatory compliance, technological advances, and the study of human factors all have contributed to the increasing safety record of commercial aviation.    

Which is it:  are you gonna walk or are you gonna fly?  In reality, no one would choose walking over flying when there’s a continent to cross. Ultimately, it’s really a matter of choosing where you place your thoughts and beliefs about flying.  If you believe flying is the safest way to travel on the planet, you will have no problem boarding an airplane.  If you believe that flying is certain to result in your death, then you will avoid it at all costs. 

So what do YOU believe about flying?