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
It’s kind of related to logistics.
The airline industry is heavily regulated. If the government says one model of plane isn’t allowed to fly, there happens to be a network of people who are *constantly* watching every plane in the sky and can see if someone breaks the rules. That airline can be penalized up to and including having its ability to operate removed. Then it’s illegal for an airport to allow their planes to board.
Imagine trying to do that with *cars*. Imagine telling a city’s police force they have to write a ticket to every driver of a Toyota Corolla unless they present paperwork indicating they got a safety recall addressed. Police are going to laugh and ignore it. That’s stupid. They’re going to see the same people drive the same cars every day and legally be obliged to pull those people over again? Heck no.
You could say, “Well, don’t let people renew their registration.” Well, sure, but a lot of people will just choose not to renew. It’s already a pretty big problem.
So instead we make the car manufacturers send an obscene amount of mail and make an obscene amount of phone calls to registered owners. That way, if the person doesn’t get the repair, the government is satisfied the manufacturer warned them about the dangers thus that person’s less likely to be able to sue over the damages.
Or, put another way:
You can’t tell if an airline fixed an airplane that has a flaw, so it’s never your fault if you get killed due to their lack of maintenance.
But you are responsible for making all necessary repairs to your car and manufacturers have to make every effort to inform you when they are available. It’s *your* responsibility to avoid driving a car you know is unsafe, and at some point if it causes harm it’s *your* liability.
So we take measures to make the person liable for the harm to stop driving the thing, and they’re the one who gets punished if they ignore it. But the average car recall is for something like “if you get in this kind of accident on a rainy day this sensor will deploy the airbag too late and you might get injured” whereas the average plane grounding is over, “About 30% of the time the autopilot gets confused on takeoff and tries to point the aircraft directly at the ground. If a pilot doesn’t make a perfect series of inputs in response it will crash with significant fatalities.”
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