Death by Aeroplane
As I was browsing the Australian Bureau of Statistics this afternoon, as you do, I found the following statistics on causes of death in Australia. I know, it’s a little morbid, but with all these vampire programs people seem pretty interested in death these days.
In the last posted year of 2008, 8804 people died from what they describe as “external causes”, that is where the underlying cause is external to the body. Overall that accounts for only 6.1% of all deaths. What that means in round terms is there’s a 94% chance that if you die in the next 12 months it will more than likely be from regular causes, like your heart giving up or your cancer getting out of hand.
When I look at some of the less likely causes of death things make sense to me.
All types of drowning - 159 people - or - .01%
Exposure to smoke, fire and flames - 72 people - or - 0.1%
Exposure to inanimate mechanic force - 85 people - or - 0.1%
A 99.7% chance I won’t die of drowning, or in a fire in my bed, or be crushed under my car while fixing an oil leak this year. All of which seems reasonably well accepted when I look around and see how much effort is being put in to preventing fires, water and mechanical evils. A few OSH posters and the yearly fund raising effort for surf life saving.
But the one I was really interested in was the chance of dying in any kind of transport accident or mishap. Because I’m assuming it includes all the people who died in terrorist attacks on planes.
All transport accidents - 1402 people - or - 1.0%
As it turns out that’s pretty close to the same number of us who will die from - falling over. I kid you not. Clearly the daily news papers are not giving the risk of falling over the equal press inches it deserves. But this figure includes all transport deaths, including road deaths, which turn out to be somewhat more prevalent than plane deaths. Luckily they break plane deaths out for us.
Guess how many air related deaths scourged the nation in 2008?
44.
They don’t say how many of these 44 were terrorist related.
Now I’ve been known to take the odd international plane flight in the last 12 months. And what is hard to miss is the elaborate pantomime going on in the name of security at airports. Cameras filming your every move. Notices warning you not to make jokes with customs or immigration staff. Whole banks of X-Ray machines and people taking their clothes off everywhere. At times you could be excused for thinking there are more security staff than passengers in the room.
I can tell you all this activity is costing somebody a whole lot of money. A quick google search led me to the autoClear 200220 extremely heavy duty X-Ray machine suitable for warehouses, correctional facilities and airports. Just a 6 foot roller table for the end of it is US$8500. In one article it quoted US$150,000 for one of those new full body scanners. Now add the cost of installation, maintenance, training and staff to run them.
Yet the Australian Bureau of Statistics tells me the chances of dying on a plane for any reason is so low they don’t assign a percentage to it.
So if it’s not a pantomime, what is it?
Apparently it’s the price of keeping me safe from terrorism.
All I can only think that they must be spending somebody elses money, because if every passenger had to hand over cold hard cash that reflected the true cost of this ‘service’ of being made ‘safe’ by pantomime I cant help but think the vast bulk of travelers would tell them to get stuffed.
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