"NrDg" wrote in message
m...
What I have heard and believe myself is that the risk of death is similar
for both activities on average. Hazards are different. Private pilots tend
to do themselve in with their own mistakes. Riders get got by others a lot
more.

That pretty well agrees with what I managed to piece
together the last time I looked into this. Having some
interest in both activities I tried to figure it out as best
I could, but there definitely ARE a lot of conflicting
statistics out there. Actually, I got into riding because
recreational flying was just getting to be SO damned
expensive (I know, if you really wanna do it, you'll
find a way - I guess I just didn't want it enough), and is
certainly a hell of a lot less able to satisfy the "I wanna go
for a ride NOW" sort of spontaneity that I can get with
the bike.

But it IS a different sort of risk, as you said. In flying,
probably 99% of the time your fate is completely in
YOUR hands - if something bad happens, it is almost
always going to be your own fault. That's certainly a
lot less true on a motorcycle, but I also like to think that
there's a lot I can do to minimize my own risk such that
it's not really as high as the statistics would make it seem.
You get to do that in flying as well, but I tend to think that
the statistics there really do reflect the actual risk to the
average, conscientious pilot pretty well.

Bob M.