Why despite the fact that flying is actually safer than driving do people get so nervous before a flight?

Question

It's not just the risk of an accident that is higher in a car. The risk of death is actually higher. As for the stranger in control theory, how come people don't have a fear of driving in Taxi's?

Answer 1

I think it freaks me out thinking that if something does happen there's pretty much no chance of surviving! I don't know maybe it was all those times of watching La Bamba as a kid, it traumatized me! Anyways, I usually drink, A LOT, before I get on a plane!

Answer 2

Well for me the fear part involves the thought of hitting the ground from a height of 36,000 ft the other is having another person in control of your fate if im going to die from transportation it will be by my own hand

Answer 3

I think they're desensitized to driving because they do it a lot more often than they fly.

Answer 4

In an airline accident you are falling 30,000 feet to the ground.

In a car accident you are on the ground.

Answer 5

First, most people are more use to (therefore comfortable) with driving/riding in a car more so than flying (familiarity).

Also, if there IS a problem, the chance of death is greater in an airplane. Something that would equate to a "fender bender" in a car, could be fatal in a plane, mainly because a BIG drop might be involved. Also, unlike a car, if something goes wrong in a plane, you don't just pull it over to the side of the road (at 30,000 feet) and check it out.

Some people are claustrophobic, others acrophobia, etc.

Finally, statistically, flying is safer. But these numbers are usually based on 1,000,000 (one million) miles. How many out there plan on traveling a million miles in a lifetime?

Answer 6

Ahh, I can answer this since I hate to fly.  If you have a fender bender in a car, you get a bump or a bruise.  A "fender bender" from 35,000 feet does a whole lot more damage.  Usually involving death.  I guess I also like the idea of being in control.  I control the car.  I don't know the pilot...how much sleep he has had, how emotionally stable he is, how educated, how risky he is. And you hear about over worked pilots and ones that take drugs and drink.  I know for the most part they are the safest way to travel...its just so unfamiluar to me to be crammed tight into a plane.

Answer 7

Air crashes get so much more news coverage when they occur, so people have misplaced fear.

If auto collision deaths got the same coverage as airline deaths, every day we would see dozens of pictures of traffic collisions as the lead news stories.  But the auto manufacturers wouldn't stand for it!

Answer 8

You're in control when you're driving. When flying as a passenger, you don't have control of the aircraft and your life is in the hands of various strangers, from pilots to ATC personnel etc.

Its this lack of control that causes most people to be nervous about flying.

Answer 9

I never could figure that out.  I enjoy flying and always have. It would be nice to fly somewhere with my wife and to enjoy the exhilaration of a take off without her cutting off the circulation in my arm.  Some chick from her hometown died in one of the only two major air crashes that ever took place at the airport in New Orleans.  The flight flew into a micro burst and crashed into a neighborhood near the end of the runway.  Ever since then the take offs are what scares her the most.  That accident was one of the first caused by at the time little understood, phenomenon called a micro burst (it's a strong downdraft of air near a rain storm) and they have the technology in place to detect them near airports.  Air travel has never been safer

.

Considering how many millions of people travel in planes everyday without accidents anyone scared would have to be the most jaded or paranoid s.o.b. around to think it's going to happen just because they're on board.

.