xkcd #2940: Modes of Transportation
Title Text:
My bold criticism might anger the hot air balloon people, which would be a real concern if any of them lived along a very narrow line directly upwind of me.
alt-text:
A chart that categorizes various modes of transportation based on their practicality and danger level:
Zone of Practicality:
- Trains
- Airliners
- Boats
- Walking
- Cars
- Scooters
- Bicycles
Zone of Specialty and Recreational Vehicles:
- Motorcycles
- Helicopters
- Light aircraft
- Go karts
- Skateboards
- Rollerblades
- Skis
- Unicycles
- Sleds
- Bumper cars
???:
- Hot air balloons
“Hot air balloons are the optimal mode of transportation, if your optimization algorithm has a sign error.”
I cant believe bicycles and scooters are perceived as more dangerous than cars. They’re slower, offer better visibility, and kill way less people.
Less dangerous to others, but more dangerous to the users themselves, I suppose.
Not only. I live in Norway, where pedestrians have right of way and drivers are extremely careful. Discounting the risk from cars, there’s still more personal danger to users of scooters as opposed to cars. If you have an accident on a scooter, you’ll get scrapes, bruises, broken bones. As compared to a car, where unless you’ve really screwed up, you’re unlikely to take any injuries at all.
Source: scooter user who HAS broken bones
The chart needs a third dimension: danger to you, danger to others, and convenience for travel.
Driving a car makes it more likely for your species to go extinct. Infinitely more dangerous than a bicycle.
Hit a pothole going 25mph in your car. Hit the same pothole going 25mph on your scooter. I’ll come visit you in the hospital after the scooter one and we can talk about how cars are obviously safer.
I ride an electric scooter, all it takes is one crack in the road that I’m less than prepared for and I’m going down hard.
I wonder what kind of scooter most people pictured when reading the comic
That is a good point, mine is the second variety, electric one similar to the ones you see littering any major Urban area waiting to be rented. Although even the largest scooter is still far less safe over a pothole or around a rainy curve than a car, typical accident in the car you mess up the car and get a bruise from the airbag, but a typical scooter accident can be a lot more gnarly.
They are more dangerous exactly because of the existence of cars. Cars are a small fortress that makes others less safe while keeping its contents safer. Unless they hit another fortress.
Even if there were no cars, I imagine biking is still less safe than walking. Just like running is less safe than walking.
That only makes sense if you cycle among cars, but that makes cars dangerous, not bikes. If you remove cars out of equation by cycling on pavement or cycle route, the danger is gone.
Pedestrians get hit by cars all the time yet walking is rated the safest.
Pedestrians don’t get hit by cars quite as much as cyclist, proportionally to their number, because cyclists are right in the street sharing the space with cars, trucks and buses. Cycling on the sidewalk is not allowed, and cycling lanes are often very dangerous. I understand that this chart is talking about danger to the passengers, not to others.
A mere fender bender on a car might be a life or death situation if you’re riding a motorcycle.
Hmm. It seems that Sync posted my draft comment 😔
Tell you what, you drive your bike into a car and maybe the concussion will change your thinking enough to make it believable that bikes are more dangerous.
We’re not rating danger for the damn planet here. It’s obviously danger for the user - that’s the one who’s buying the product. Why would anyone care about the safety of others over their own safety?
Why would anyone care about the safety of others over their own safety?
As long as I can slice vegetables using my car door I don’t give a damn about pedestrians.
I will literally shit inside any human being I don’t personally know (and some that I do know) if it makes my life 0.02% more comfortable. What’s your point?
This is wildly dependent on infrastructure. Both for the convenience and danger axis.
motorcycles should 100% be in the zone of practicality, especially with modern sleek electric ones.
skateboards should be the bridge between practical and recreational, provided you have sensible infrastructure and short distances they have distinct benefits.
skis and sleds just need snow to make sense
I think the existence of car drivers increases their danger level massively
Apparently alcohol as well as it is involved in something like 50% of motorcycle fatalities.
I’m here to say that if there’s snow, skis win on practicality. Almost every winter, there’s at least one day when you will have some people skiing to work in Oslo, a city of 700 000 inhabitants, with a metro system. Because when there’s 10 cm of snow in the streets, skis are the quickest and easiest way to get anywhere.
The placement of „Skis“ in this will trigger every Scandinavian I know. Should definitely be in the top left.
Technicalities:
Planes are safer per mile but not per trip. One could argue that if people spent the same amount of time in both then it would be far more fatalities on aircrafts.
Cars are technically the major source of danger for bikes and scooters.
also a fun fact, while commercial aviation is very safe, private planes are much more dangerous, being almost as dangerous per mile as a regular car (and you get a lot more miles per hour of travel)
That already fits with the chart - “commercial aviation” is “airlines” and “private planes” are “light aircraft”.
private planes are much more dangerous, being almost as dangerous per mile as a regular car
that is because they are operated by semi-competent people who often have less practice then they have in car.
imagine how competent driver you are when you have your fresh license. it is the same with piloting license. and now imagine you are a hobby pilot and can afford to spend in the cockpit 3 hours per month. your skill is not really going to get significantly better. you are probably flying airplane that is at the end of its life, because that is only one you can afford, and there may be no one keeping an eye on you telling you “this is not how we do it, it is risky, dangerous, and you will get someone killed”.
Someone else put it this way.
Sometimes I walk to work; sometimes I drive my car; other times i ride a bicycle. Whichever option I pick, I hate anyone who isn’t doing the same thing.
A therapist once told me that who you are when you drive is who you really are.