Outside of a brief aside in the movie Fight Club and what I assume are economic reasons, I’ve never seen good compelling reasons why airplanes are grounded for accidents, while cars do not seem to undergo the same level of scrutiny?
Is it just because cars are tested more before they enter the market?
From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that airplanes are already much safer than cars- so what gives?
In: Engineering
When something goes seriously wrong in a plane, several hundred people may die and several 10s of millions of dollars will be lost. Aviation is so often used because it’s widely trusted and very, very safe. It’s in societies best interest that this remain true.
When something goes seriously wrong with a car, other safety systems usually prevent serious injury. When people die because of a specific design or manufacturing flaw, it’s usually very small numbers.
Less than 20 people in total have died in crashes where it’s claimed the Tesla autopilot was at fault (the number is crashes claimed to be because of the autopilot is actually quite large and the Justice department is investigating)
**tl;dr There is a human bias. Because aviation is so safe, a plane crash stands out and it’s indisputable something went terribly wrong. Car crashes are isolated, not reported together, and spread out over time. Because there is no “big event”, there is little public pressure to get it fixed. Knowing that, industry lawyers then make it hard to force a fix.**
Latest Answers